{"id":6560,"date":"2011-07-12T00:53:29","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T04:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=6560"},"modified":"2011-07-12T03:10:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T07:10:38","slug":"a-poem-by-tene-youssouf-gueye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/a-poem-by-tene-youssouf-gueye\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poem by Tene Youssouf Gueye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my Mauritanian foray, here is a poem in my translation by\u00a0Tene Youssouf Gueye, <\/strong>born in\u00a0Ka\u00e9di, Mauritania in 1928 and who died in 1988 (for details see commentary below the poem).<\/p>\n

THE MEANING OF THE CIRCUS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Distant carillons\u00a0 of the Great Copper Clock
\nveiled echoes of bugles and the song of crowds (choir of
\ngreat communal feasts, syncopated applause descending
\ninto the depths along green abysses)
\nwe climb back up the dreams to the blue height of stars
\nall the way to the sonorous circus tiers
\nresplendent in light.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re back in the front rows of the
\ngrand circle in its heavy red drapes and bathed in
\npink sunsets where slight whiffs of dead
\nroses float. The distinguished and smiling gladiators
\nare still there, on the look-out for wild animals and shadows, their
\ngreat wrestler torsos masked with fine silks.
\nThe call rises in anguish, toward far meridians of
\nhuman treason: here we are at the hearings of grand
\nindictments on those contending on bronze high-warp carpets [and muddy sands;
\nwe remain voiceless on the shores of other seas,
\nour gazes fixed on the horizons over there under the Tropics
\nand the spirit of the abysses.
\nThe Hottentot tethered to his hills of the Transvaal (and my Texan
\nbrother outsmarting his troubles at the threshold of nightclubs),
\nthe Kakongo from Angola in his death-dealing maquis (and
\nmy brother in Arizona soaked in Tequila), spatters an the other side [of the Kalahari,
\n(and my other brother at the forbidden threshold of his native [Palestine\u2026)
\nAnd the prostrate crowd suddenly rises, scrutinizing
\nthe faint light in the east where the silhouettes of mercenaries are [moving;
\nwe sharpen our lances humid from easy dews,
\nlying in wait for shadows come down from the sky toward Bissau.
\nOur elite lancers charging far away citadels
\nbehind the Great Gorilla, the Great Circus shuts up and watches
\nthe distinguished gladiators descending into the arenas of this Night
\nso high and spattered with knowing stars.<\/p>\n

We shiver in unison with the hours, toward those other
\nsea shores shaken by\u00a0 thunderstorms heavy with the scents
\nof jungles and swamps: Smith and N\u2019Komo, Salazar
\nand Roberto, Verwoerd and Luthuli, great puddles of night
\nin the clearings of Kivu, screech of conniving rockets
\nreturning from monsoons of violence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>One of the major voices in modern francophone Mauritanian literature, Tene Youssouf Gueye is the author of several novels as well as volumes of poetry (among others, Les exil\u00e9s du Goumel<\/em>, 1968; A l\u2019or\u00e9e du Sahel<\/em>, 1975; Sah\u00e9liennes<\/em>, 1975 and Rella<\/em>, 1985). He was President of the Mauritanian Writers Association and an important civil servant after the independence of his country, serving as Mauritania\u2019s delegate to UNESCO. Politically active, he stood up with other Mauritanian intellectuals for the rights of Mauritanians of African descent who were being discriminated against. As early as 1986, a group of Afro-mauritanians were arrested for having written and distributed a document called the Manifesto of the Oppressed Negro-Mauritanians<\/em>, a document that brought proof of racial discrimination, while asking for the opening of a dialogue with the powers that be. The government\u2019s reaction will be a vendetta that will prove to be the darkest and bloodiest page in the country\u2019s history. Ten Gueye was thrown \u2014 with many others \u2014 into prison by the dictatorship of Colonel\u00a0 Maawiyya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya, and died in the infamous \u201cOualata mouroir\u201d in 1988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing on my Mauritanian foray, here is a poem in my translation by\u00a0Tene Youssouf Gueye, born in\u00a0Ka\u00e9di, Mauritania in 1928 and who died in 1988 (for details see commentary below the poem). THE MEANING...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,91,103],"tags":[1018],"class_list":["post-6560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-poetry","category-translation","tag-tene-youssouf-gueye"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6560"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6568,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6560\/revisions\/6568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}