Windows on the new World of SipaKV

“M. Rado was over six feet tall, graying at the temples, his angular features lending him a distinguished look. His wife reminded me of Gwendolyn Knight, a sculptor and the wife of African American painter Jacob Lawrence. Like Ms. Knight, Mme Andriamanantena had the kind of beauty that some women keep well at ay age. Under a crown of gray hair, her face was unlined and her smile radiant. She was at ease talking about her husband’s work and their life together.

Before the revolution, before the French were finally expelled from Madagascar, M. Rado had been jailed many times. “The French did not want us to sit for university exams, to write poems, to speak with pride about our country,” he said. “We were told that we were French. But I did not go to jail for being French.”

This is an excerpt from “Over the lip of the world”, by  Colleen J. McElroy (a review is posted here), when she meets Rado and his wife. McElroy is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Washington. She travelled to MAdagascar in 1993, as a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, to explore Malagasy oral traditions and myths. She recorded stories and song poems from village folk artists, ethnographers and poets. The book is a result of her travels from Antananarivo, to Nosy Be, Fort Dauphin.

I looked at a picture of Gwendolyn Knight, and indeed she does resemble the picture of Mme Rado as shown in the book.
“Some of M. Rado’s poems were lyrical, reminiscent of the metaphors and symbols found in traditional ohabolana, or proverbs, but others were more direct. He explained how his poems often used the traditional hainteny forms to address contemporary issues, but in others he leaned toward the style of contemporary verse. One, “Isan’andro Vaky izao”, written in the sixties, was a protest of the Vietnam War. Tiana said “He was to go to America, but because of that poem, the Americans would not give him permission. It was too dangerous.” We laughed at the irony of the “free world” suppressing a poet who had experienced colonial oppression. “In poetry,” he said, “the heart is filled”.”

Follows a translation of “Embona”

Nostalgia

There but exhausted

My heart lies heavy but why? Daylight already

Trailing evening’s dark garments turned aside

With my strength do I grow weary

Or… the bright vision of the past

Filled with coaxing that fades through years?

And is what I predict left dressed to mourn

Far out of sight whatever I wished?

Or… on the other hand

Does weariness of mind tear me apart soon

Leaving only strength a wild beast prowling for song

As appeasement