Di pɔsin dɛn we rayt
Na in de rayt as Aquah Laluah · 1904–1950
“By twenty, I had the firm conviction that I was meant to write for Africa.”
Dɔta fɔ Adelaide Casely-Hayford. I bin tich na in mama in Gyals Vokeshɔnal Skul na Fritɔŋ, ɛn i de pan di fɔs pɔsin dɛn we rayt powɛm na Krio. Ya na ɔl di powɛm dɛn we wi fɛn, frɔm usay dɛn fɔs print dɛn.
My feet are tired. Before I journey forth! Invigorate my limbs, swift, strong, fierce North. My heart is tired. Behold my quivering mouth! Imprint thy kiss upon it, tender South. My lips are cold; Come thou, and spread thy feast Of wine and laughter; warm my heart, young East. My soul is tired. Perchance thou'lt find it rest! Just lose it in thy vastness, gentle West.
It's funny how I keep on wanting Mammy, Just wanting Mammy, the whole day through; When you come to think of it—it's quite uncanny, The sort of things a Mammy does for you. She cleans a fellow up and leaves no patches, Just by sheer faith, in what a chap can do; And how can you be dirty for a minute? When she thinks you're honest timber, through and through; And she feels no storm on earth can set you creaking, And no worms can penetrate your grain and hide; And if rumor has an evil way of speaking Of things you do—she'll up and say, they lied; And if Life reveals the truth when big storms thunder, Her frail body comes betwixt you and the night, Though you feel her very heart being torn asunder She'll face the world unflinching, say you're right. Do you think you're worth the heart-break and the heart-ache Or worth your salt—and manhood's distance run? Is that why she's such a guardian angel to ye? Don't you fool yourself—it's 'cause you're just her son.
A flush, a curve, a wind that blows— A breath of life, 'twas called a rose. A little sorrow and joy in part, A breath of love, 'twas called a heart. A heart, a rose, God took those two, He wove them together; He called them you.
Wink a little, blink a little, Scratch your wee brown nose; Yawn a little, sigh a little, Snuggle 'neath the clothes. Wink a little, blush a little, Laugh, and shake your head; Rub your wee brown toes together, Tumble out of bed. Stand on both feet, slightly swaying, Like twin flower stems; Wild sweet Fantee pickaninny, One of Africa's Gems.
I detect melodious buzzing, that prefaces attack; It penetrates my snoring when I'm lying on my back, I sit eyes shut a moment, my senses half awake, I stretch out for my slipper, for my life is then at stake. I light a spluttering candle—see—it hovers on the wing, One mighty swipe—I hold my breath—I've missed the blessed thing. Zing! bang! relentlessly my pursuit: I swear that it shall die, Crash—I've hit it! No I've missed it. Drat the beastly fly! Hush! Like a supplicant I crawl, upon my head and knees, To where my enemy's ensign flaps in the midnight breeze, Wallop!—I see seven stars at once—a bump swells on my head! Jug overturned—bed upside down, but the mosquito— Dead!
Within a native hut, ere stirred the dawn, Unto the Pure One was an Infant born Wrapped in blue lappah that his mother dyed. Laid on his father's home-tanned deer-skin hide The babe still slept by all things glorified. Spirits of black bards burst their bonds and sang, "Peace upon earth" until the heavens rang. All the black babies who from earth had fled, Peeped through the clouds, then gathered round His head. Telling of things a baby needs to do, When first he opens his eyes on wonders new; Telling Him that to sleep was sweeter rest, All comfort came from His black mother's breast. Their gifts were of Love caught from the springing sod, Whilst tears and laughter were the gifts of God. Then all the wise men of the past stood forth Filling the air East, West, and South and North; And told him of the joys that wisdom brings To mortals in their earthly wanderings. The children of the past shook down each bough, Wreathed Frangepani blossoms for His brow; They put pink lilies in His mother's hand, And heaped for both the first fruits of the land. His father cut some palm fronds that the air Be coaxed to zephyrs while He rested there. Birds trilled their hallelujahs; and the dew Trembled with laughter till the babe laughed too. All the black women brought their love so wise, And kissed their motherhood into his mother's eyes.
The calabash wherein she served my food, Was smooth and polished as sandalwood: Fish, as white as the foam of the sea, Peppered, and golden fried for me. She brought palm wine that carelessly slips From the sleeping palm tree's honeyed lips. But who can guess, or even surmise The countless things she served with her eyes?
The Atlantic Monthly, April 1927 ("West African Melodies")
The souls of black and white were made By the selfsame God of the selfsame shade. God made both pure, and He left one white; God laughed o'er the other, and wrapped it in night. Said He, 'I've a flower, and none can unfold it; I've a breath of great mystery, nothing can hold it. Spirit so illusive the wind cannot sway it, A force of such might even death cannot slay it.' But so that He might conceal its glow He wrapped it in darkness, that men might not know. Oh, the wonderful souls of both black and white Were made by one God, of one sod, on one night.
Opportunity, September 1927; Caroling Dusk (ed. Countee Cullen), 1927
Out of the tense awed darkness, my Frangepani comes; Whilst the blades of Heaven flash round her, and the roll of thunder drums My young heart leaps and dances, with exquisite joy and pain, As storms within and storms without I meet my love in the rain. "The rain is in love with you darling; it's kissing you everywhere, Rain pattering over your small brown feet, rain in your curly hair; Rain in the vale that your twin breasts make, as in delicate mounds they rise, I hope there is rain in your heart, Frangepani, as rain half fills your eyes." Into my hands she cometh, and the lightning of my desire Flashes and leaps about her, more subtle than Heaven's fire; "The lightning's in love with you darling; it is loving you so much, That its warm electricity in you pulses wherever I may touch. When I kiss your lips and your eyes, and your hands like twin flowers apart, I know there is lightning, Frangepani, deep in the depths of your heart." The thunder rumbles about us, and I feel its triumphant note As your warm arms steal around me; and I kiss your dusky throat; "The thunder's in love with you darling. It hides its power in your breast. And I feel it stealing o'er me as I lie in your arms at rest. I sometimes wonder, beloved, when I drink from life's proffered bowl, Whether there's thunder hidden in the innermost parts of your soul." Out of my arms she stealeth; and I am left alone with the night, Void of all sounds save peace, the first faint glimmer of light. Into the quiet, hushed stillness my Frangepani goes. Is there peace within like the peace without? Only the darkness knows.
Brown Baby Cobina, with his large black velvet eyes, His little coos of ecstacies, his gurgling of surprise, With brass bells on his ankles, that laugh where'er he goes, It's so rare for bells to tinkle, above brown dimpled toes. Brown Baby Cobina is so precious that we fear Something might come and steal him, when we grown-ups are not near; So we tied bells on his ankles, and kissed on them this charm— "Bells, guard our Baby Cobina from all devils and all harm."
Why do the bards of black folk Sing grief brushed over with gladness? Because God sculptured the soul of the race In a moment of wistful sadness. Why do the bards of black folk Sing joy that follows all sorrow? God's tool when He sculptured the soul of the race Was "The Hope of the Unborn Morrow."
Close your sleepy eyes, or the pale moonlight will steal you, Else in the mystic silence, the moon will turn you white. Then you won't see the sunshine, nor smell the open roses, Nor love your Mammy anymore, whose skin is dark as night. You will only love the shadows, and the foam upon the billows, The shadow of the vulture's wings, the call of mystery The hooting of the night owl, and the howling of the jackal, The sighing of the evil winds, the call of mystery. Wherever moonlight stretches her arms across the heavens, You will follow, always follow, till you become instead, A shade in human draperies, with palm fronds for your pillow, In place of Mammy's bibini, asleep on his wee bed.
Akosua selling palm wine, In the broiling heat; Akosua selling palm wine Down our street. Frothing calabashes Filled unto the brim, Boatmen quaffing palm wine In toil's interim. Tossing off their palm wine, Boatmen deem her fair; Through the haze of palm wine, Note her jet black hair. Roundness of her bosom, Brilliance of her eyes, Lips that form a cupid's bow, Whereon love's dew lies. Velvet gleam of shoulder, Arch of bare black feet; Soft caressing hands, These her charms complete. Thus illusioned boatmen Dwell on 'Kosua's charms, Blind to fallen bosom, Knotted thin black arms. Lips creased in by wrinkles, Eyes dimmed with the years, Feet whose arch was altered Treading vales of tears. Hair whose roots life's madness Knotted and turned wild. On her heart a load of care; On her back, a child. Akosua selling palm wine In the broiling heat. Akosua selling palm wine Down our street.
Unknown; reprinted in The Entrance Place of Wonders: Poems of the Harlem Renaissance (2006)
Wi de kip di wɔd dɛn te wi chɛk di rayt fɔ print am.
Fɔ chɛk: Pieced together from full-text search snippets of a lending copy; check against the book.
Wi de kip di wɔd dɛn te wi chɛk di rayt fɔ print am.
Fɔ chɛk: Quoted in Robert Fraser, West African Poetry: A Critical History (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 29–31: https://archive.org/details/westafricanpoetr00fras. Only the stanzas Fraser quotes, pieced together from full-text search snippets of a lending copy; check the spelling and line breaks against the book, and the whole poem against a copy of Take 'Um So.
Take 'Um So (Freetown: New Era Press, 1948); reprinted in West African Verse (ed. Donatus Nwoga, 1967)
Wi de kip di wɔd dɛn te wi chɛk di rayt fɔ print am.
Fɔ chɛk: Pieced together from full-text search snippets of a lending copy; check the line breaks against the book.
Probably Take 'Um So (1948); reprinted in West African Verse (ed. Donatus Nwoga, 1967)
Wi de kip di wɔd dɛn te wi chɛk di rayt fɔ print am.
Fɔ chɛk: Pieced together from full-text search snippets of a lending copy; the editor's notes confirm lines 10, 13, 15 and 16.
story, with a song
Darkness and Light (ed. Peggy Rutherfoord, London, 1958; in the US African Voices), pp. 133–140. The song alone is in Poems from Black Africa (ed. Langston Hughes, 1963).
Wi de kip di wɔd dɛn te wi chɛk di rayt fɔ print am.
Fɔ chɛk: The song, pieced together from full-text search snippets of a lending copy of Poems from Black Africa; the line breaks are a guess. The story itself (a prize bull called Shadow of Darkness) needs the book.
In buk
Take 'Um So
Gladys May Casely-Hayford
1948
New Era Press, Freetown
Among the first poems published in Krio. No copy online; a library copy would help us.
Wetin wi stil de luk fɔ
Tri tin we Gladys rayt we wi no se de, bɔt wi nɔ fɛn na intanɛt. If yu gɛt kɔpi, ɔ yu go tek foto fɔ am na laybri, duya tɛl wi.
Her book Take 'Um So (1948)
Wetin mek i impɔtant
Her only book, printed in Freetown in 1948. Three of its poems are in Krio, among the first ever printed, but only one has ever been quoted. No copy is online.
Usay kɔpi go de
Fourah Bay College library, the Sierra Leone Public Archives or the Library Board in Freetown. Abroad: the British Library, SOAS in London, or Northwestern University near Chicago.
Memoirs and Poems (1983)
Wetin mek i impɔtant
A book of her poems and her mother Adelaide's memoirs, put together after they died. Poems she never printed in her life are probably here, including her other Krio poems.
Usay kɔpi go de
University libraries in Freetown, the British Library, SOAS or the Library of Congress. It was edited by Lucilda Hunter, a relative, so her family may hold the poems too.
Poems in newspapers, 1930s–40s
Wetin mek i impɔtant
She printed poems in West African Review and in Sierra Leone newspapers. None of these pages is online.
Usay kɔpi go de
The Sierra Leone Public Archives in Freetown, or the British Library's newspaper collection.