Leopold Senghor — Two Poems

The previous line tells you that the woman is naked. So what is she clothed with? Her skin. And what color is that skin? Black. Black, then, in this poem, is the color of life, not green.

This line alludes to the opening of Dante's Divine Comedy:

In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood.

This quotation itself is a reference to Isaiah 38:10, where Hezekiah, the King of Judah laments his early death:

I said, In the noontide of my days
I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
for the rest of my years.

Here Senghor uses both seasonal and diurnal imagery to place this poem at the midpoint of both the year and the day (and his life).

Playing with the idea that the colonizers "discovered" Africa, Senghor says that he "discovered" something that has existed in the world since Mitochondrial Eve (the most recent common ancestor of all living human beings). He has no more "discovered" her than Columbus "discovered" the New World or Europe "discovered" Africa. She has entered his field of awareness, that's all.

Again, a biblical reference, to Canaan, the Promised Land for the Israelites. During their Exodus, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years before they entered this land of milk and honey. The irony is that they were fleeing slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, while slavery itself brought an exodus from the shores of Africa, as many were forced into exile through this bondage.

The hill is charred because it's been burned over. It's a technique called slash-and-burn cultivation, a method of farming that requires little technology. Once crops are harvested, what remains on the land is burned in place. The resulting layer of ash provides the newly-cleared land with nutrients to help fertilize whatever crops are planted next.

Senghor aligns the Black Woman with the natural cycles of birth and death, and nods to her fertility, connected with the fertility of the land.

The Black Woman represents the continent. The grassland is moved by the wind as if it were her hair. Some editors say this is the harmattan, a dry, dusty easterly or northeasterly wind on the West African coast, occurring from December to February. But, given the context, this seems more likely to be the northeast trade winds that flow from east to west across the continent. These trade winds are far more gentle, and bring the monsoon with its renewing rain from June to October, replenishing the land for agriculture.

Here the Black Woman's body, with its tight, taut lines, becomes the djembe, a traditional African drum. Her skin, soothed above by the wind, is now streteched taut and groans, or sounds, as she is "played" by the colonizers.

Senghor extends this metaphor of colonization. The continent itself cries out as it is played, handled, fingered, or rather, manhandled by the manipulations of the colonizers. In Senghor's French, the term for hand is main.

Another biblical reference, this time to the Song of Solomon. This book is usually read as an allegory of God's love for humanity. The "beloved," in the biblical text, signifies both the human and the Divine. Here Senghor recalls it to reinforce the African-centered nature of Négritude. Her voice is not the typically feminine (and European-centered) soprano, but the lower-pitched, earthy, alto.

Here is Song of Solomon 1:1-5:,

O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your love is better than wine,
your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is oil poured out;
therefore the maidens love you.
. . .
I am black and beautiful,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.

The voice of the Beloved sets up some images following this stanza. Here is Song of Solomon 2:8-9:

The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

Wrestling is the national sport of Senegal. Wrestlers use oil both for muscle massages before a match and to make it more difficult for their opponents to get a grasp on them.

Oil is also a sign of being chosen , by either those around you or by the Divine. Kings and princes are anointed, and the chrism used (chrism is a concentrated, perfumed oil) signifies being set apart. The Mali empire once covered a significant amount of modern-day Senegal.

Another image from the Song of Solomon, a continuation of the final line above:

My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.

But this time the gazelle is apotheosized, turned into a constellation of stars, fastened into the firmament of heaven.

Now the naked Black Woman stands in the firelight, and the fire makes her skin shine with this gold-red color.

Senghor makes the Modernist move here, reminding us that we're looking at a work of art or a production. But because we're doing so, he is able to take the beauty of the Black Woman, a beauty that will naturally fade, and create a version of it that will not succumb to the ravages of time. That version is this poem.

Senghor calls us back to the charred hilltop. Eventually the Black Woman will die, and her body will be returned to the soil, where it will continue to participate in the circle of life and death by providing sustenance for the new life that will grow from that soil.

The ramifications of this for the Senghor's position in line 5 above are that Senghor is standing on the body of the Black Woman, that body which has been committed back to the earth.

And yet, even though that physical body has turned back to the earth from which it came, it is preserved in all its beauty through this poem he has created.close

In most traditional African cultures, the person who wears a ritual mask conceptually loses his or her human identity and turns into the spirit represented by the mask itself. This transformation of the mask wearer into a spirit usually relies on other practices, such as specific types of music and dance, or ritual costumes that contribute to conceal the mask-wearer's human identity. The mask wearer thus becomes a sort of medium that allows for a dialogue between the community and the spirits (usually those of the dead or nature-related spirits).

The winds from the cardinal points of the compass were often portrayed as coming from angels or masks that were placed on the borders or at the corners of a map or picture. This is a symbolic representation of a four-fold cosmic (heavenly) division and a three-fold terrestrial (earthly) division.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
-- Acts of the Apostles 2:1-3.

The enemy boasted, "I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them." But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
-- Exodus 15:9-10

Senghor's family's guardian animal, the lion, symbol of virtue and courage. Traditionally, these animals were thought to be the first ancestor and the protector of the family line. This also alludes to the name of his father, Diogoye, which in his native Serer language means lion. In ceremonies in which masks would be used, the family might be represented by a lion mask.

Senghor further reinforces the implications of long tradition and patriarchal power. The lion guards the ground that is forbidden to women and to passing things, in favor of values, memories, and customs that connect him with his ancestors.

The literal meanings of distill are to either purify a liquid by vaporizing it, then condensing it by cooling the vapor, and collecting the resulting liquid—that is, to boil something down and capture a far more concentrated, "essential" version of it—or to extract the essential meaning or most important aspects of a thing.

Distilling wine into a stronger drink was common throughout North and West Africa by the 11th century. The Arab poet Abu Nuwas described the result of distillation as a wine that

has the color of rainwater
but is as hot inside the ribs
as a burning firebrand.

Senghor plays with both meanings here, stating that the masks act like a liquor still, concentrating something eternal, something that will not fade with time, into a fifth element, or quintessence of his ancestry.close

The masks are timeless representations of previously living faces. They smooth over the once-human features and signs of age in the faces of the ancestors, and thus live beyond their death.

The people these masks embody have given shape to the person writing the poem.

Like a monk in a scriptorium, or a priest at an altar, he is bent over his altar/page.

His writing, then, is his sacrifice.

Senghor here makes a typically modernist move, calling attention to the creation of the work of art.

The past empires and kingdoms of African self-rule are over. They once covered the continent, but now Africa is subject to European colonization.

Senghor was living in a time after the infamous "Scramble for Africa," which took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here European powers colonized the continent for its natural resources.

Africa is the mother or Europe, and they are bound by an umbilical cord.

The idea behind this image is taken from Matthew 5:39-40:

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

This is referring to a poor person who borrows money and cannot repay the debt. In Jewish law at the time, a creditor, by law, could take a borrower's inner garment. Jesus asks more: a stand against humiliation and resistance to oppression.

This would mean stripping off all their clothing and marching out of the court stark naked! Imagine the hilarity this saying must have evoked. There stands the creditor, covered with shame, the poor debtor's outer garment in the one hand, his undergarment in the other. The tables have suddenly been turned on the creditor. The debtor had no hope in winning the case; the law was entirely in the creditor's favor. But the poor man has transcended this attempt to humiliate him. He has risen above the shame. At the same time, he has registered a stunning protest against a system that spawns such debt.

Jesus provides here a hint of how to take on the entire system in a way that unmasks its essential cruelty and to burlesque its pretensions to justice, law and order. Here is a poor man who will no longer be treated as a sponge to be squeezed dry by the rich.

--Walter Wink, "Neither Passivity nor Violence: Jesus’ Third Way"

This is not just a new Renaissance, but a new world. It alludes both to a renewed sense of humanity discovered after the horrors of the world wars and to the Book of Revelation, with the dead rising at the last trumpet. See line 19.

White flour cannot rise on its own. It needs a biological, chemical, or mechanical agent that will allow it to rise. Common leavens are yeast or sourdough starter. Here is Matthew 13:33:

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

The world has become almost inhuman with its focus on mass production and warfare. Africans are needed to teach Europeans what it means to be human again.

Another famous biblical reference, to 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

The memory what what life once was, what life once meant when we knew how to be human, will bring hope to those who have had it ripped from them.

It's easy to see why people see Africans as people connected to these natural resources. But their worth is not defined by the natural resources that can be taken from them. Senghor says they are more than just what they can grow, mine, or take from the ground.

The African peoples can remind the Europeans of what it means to be human. Their souls have not been overrun by increased mechanization and war. And their contact with the natural world, the natural rhythms of the seasons and of lives lived more closely in touch with the earth, is something European cultures need if they're going to survive.