By Syl Cheney-Coker.
(for Yulisa Amadu Maddy)
Amadu I live alone inside four walls of books
some I have read others will grow cobwebs
or maybe like some old friends and lovers
will fade away with their undisclosed logic
the world that I have seen: New York
where I suffered the suicidal brother
and London where I discovered Hinostroza
Delgado, Ortega, Heraud and other
Andean poets with a rage very much like ours!
remember Amadu how terrible I said it was
that you were in exile and working
in the Telephone Office in touch with all
the languages of the world but with no world
to call your own; how sad you looked that winter
drinking your life and reading poetry with me
in the damp chilly English coffee shops
remember I said how furious I was
that Vallejo had starved to death in Paris
that Rabearivelo had killed himself
suffocated by an imaginary France
and I introduced Neruda and Guillen to you
and how in desperation we sought solace in the house
of John La Rose, that courageous Trinidadian poet
Amadu I am writing to you from the dungeon of my heart
the night brings me my grief and I am passive
waiting for someone to come, a woman
a friend, someone to sooth my dying heart!
now the memory of our lives brings a knife to my poems
our deaths which so burdened the beautiful Martiniquan
you said made you happy, she made you so happy, you a
tormented playwright
sadness returns, the apparitions of my brothers
and my mother grows old thinking about them
and also seeing so much sadness in me her living and dying son
my mother who wishes me happy, who wants me to relive
the son
she lost to poetry like a husband a wife to a trusted friend
but already the walls are closing around me
the rain has stopped and once again I am alone
waiting for them, the politicians of our country to come for me
to silence my right to shouting poetry loud in the parks
but who can shut up the rage the melodrama of being
Sierra Leone
the farce of seeing their pictures daily in the papers
the knowledge of how though blindfolded and muzzled
something is growing, bloating, voluptuous and not despairing
I say to you for now, I embrace you brother.
Photo: Syl Cheyney-Coker.
Long characterized as one of the more exciting and strident voices amongst the younger African poets, ... Syl Cheney Coker has amassed a body of works that reflect a growing maturity of vision without losing any of its passion or righteous vigor. Born in 1945 to Christian Creole parents in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Cheney Coker was a recipient of the Writer-in-Exile, Lion Feuchtwanger Fellowship. Every year the Villa Aurora awards, in cooperation with PEN Center USA West, a fellowship for up to twelve months to a writer who is under persecution or forced to live in exile. In the words of Cheney Coker, "It takes a good deal of sang-froid to be a writer - a writer who is engaged - anywhere these days. Gone are the days when we could take for granted the nostrum that there exists a climate of tolerance for the dissident or maverick to write in freedom."
Cheney Coker has taught at universities in Africa, Asia and the United States. His poems, fiction and essays have been translated into ten languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for African Literature in 1991 and 1996. His published works include "The Blood in the Desert’s Eyes" (1990), "The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar" (1990), "The Graveyard Also Has Teeth" (1980) and "Concerto for an Exile" (1973).
Source: USC
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