A poem by Lenrie Peters

I am continuously seeking to expand my literary horizon and explore works from every part of the globe. Among the geographical areas with which I am most fascinated is West-Africa, in particular the literature of the immediate post-colonial era in which African writers sought to establish a literary traditions for their own countries. In so doing, the writers were aiming for a double purpose. On the one hand, their literature helped to expand the country's own cultural scene and thus distinguish this country's cultre from that of other countries, especially its former colonisers. But on the other hand, this literature could also connect the culture of the newly independent country with the rest of the world, for instance by drawing on cultural expressions and modes from countries such as their former colonisers. This duality is not paradoxical or contradictory but rather a very common dynamic in cultural histories all over the world.

One example of the first generation of post-colonial West-Africa is Lenrie Peters (1932-2009), born in Gambia and educated in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown - both of which were British colonies at the time - before studying in Cambridge. Peters was a pan-africanist, meaning that he emphasised what he considered African values and sought a united Africa. In 1967, two years after the country's independence, Peters published his collection of predominantly untitled poems, Satellites, which comprises a range of intensely poetic reflections that draw on the wide vista of world history for its content - alluding to events in Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. - and thus demonstrating Peters' international approach both to literature in general and African literature in particular. In this blogpost, I present you with poem number 2 from this collection. The edition used is that of Heinemann's African Writers Series.



Satellites, no. 2


Autumn burns me with
primaeval fire. Makes my skin
taut with expectation,
hurls me out of summer fatigue
on to a new Bridge of Sighs.

Somewhere I feel the heart
of the earth pumping, and down below
it bleeds in a million ripples.
I drop a sweet memory into
the flow and the cascading grips me with fascination

Great trees in transit fall
are made naked in langour of shame
solitary like actors on a stage
like stars, orphans, celebrities,
politicians, uncomfortably mysteriously like you and me.

But I will not mourn the sadness.
I will go dead-leaf gathering
for the fire in a slice of sunlight
to fill me lungs with odours of decay
and my eyes with mellowed rainbow colours

I will go creeping down tasselled
latticed tree-avenues of light
and listen to squirrel tantrums
punctuate the orchestration of autumn silence
and hold in my hand the coiling stuff of nature

Then I will love
Yes love; extravagantly under
the flutter of dying leaves
and in a shaddow of mist
in wonder; for autumn is wonder and wonder is hope.