For the day that’s in it, here are a few pieces of poetry relevant to Nelson Mandela.
Firstly a imbongi poem. An imbongi is an oral poet in the Xhosa tradition. Like the medieval European jester the imbongi could traditionally speak with impunity. Mandela was from the royal family of the Xhosa-speaking Thembu tribe in the South African village of Mvezo. This is part of a poem spoken at a rally in April 1990.
They call him even if they don’t know him.
They call him even if they have never seen him before,
That is why we need to be humble and respect one another,
Because we have seen him at last.
An example of Jesus followed by many people,
He has come with them in truth and dignity,
That is where we can witness and hear his words,
That is where we have confirmed that his words are true.
In 2008, Liberian poet and politician Togba-Nah Tipoteh presented Mandela with his poem that includes the lines:
Apartheid sought to break his back forever
Instead, Mandela broke apartheid’s back forever
Apartheid doped with the authority of brutality
Mandela robed with the authority of morality
Apartheid crushed under the ground
Mandela raised above the ground
The most famous poem associated with Mandela is Invictus by William Ernest Henley 1875 which was recited by Mandela in Robben Island.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
There is a connection that can be made between the ANC and Irish poetry. Mongane Wally Serote was a member of the ANC, who in 1969 was arrested and put into solitary confinement. Nicholas Meihuizen holds Serote as the African counterpart to the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, arguing that: “as political entities South Africa and Ireland have both been subjected to histories of violence based on colonial ethic discrimination and its variations, including the binaries inherent in colonialism: Master and Slave, First World and Third World, Settler and Indigene. What are the responses of Heaney and Serote to this violence? …if hope is a tool, language is its implement, and, again, Serote would effect transformation through language. His war against apartheid has been a way of words, in the most literal sense, and the world has witnessed that such a war can influence hearts and minds.”
In this small piece from Serote’s poem When Lights Go Out we can see his connection between land, struggle, hope and human pain that one finds in Heaney’s works.
so one day hope begins to walk again
it whispers
about the twisted corpses that we saw
sprawled across the streets on this knowledgeable earth
the tears
the blood
the memory
and the knowledge, which was born
by every heavy minute that we carried
across a wilderness, where there were no paths
where screams echoed, as if never to stop
it is when there is no hope, that hope begins to walk again
yet
like we said
hope never befriends fools
And here is Heaney’s Requiem for the Croppies
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley…
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp…
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching… on the hike…
We found new tactics happening each day:
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until… on Vinegar Hill… the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August… the barley grew up out of our grave.