WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.960 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:03.060 align:middle line:90%
I'd like to read some--

00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:06.240 align:middle line:84%
let's see, what
do I want to read?

00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:08.887 align:middle line:84%
I want to read some excerpts
from a long poem of mine,

00:00:08.887 --> 00:00:11.220 align:middle line:84%
but it's not going to be as
long as what you just heard.

00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:12.610 align:middle line:90%
The poem itself is very long.

00:00:12.610 --> 00:00:16.530 align:middle line:84%
It's called
"Impressions of Africa,"

00:00:16.530 --> 00:00:19.170 align:middle line:84%
a title I stole from the
French writer Raymond Roussel.

00:00:19.170 --> 00:00:24.270 align:middle line:84%
It was a result of a trip I made
to French Black Africa about

00:00:24.270 --> 00:00:27.750 align:middle line:84%
three years ago when I
read my poetry in French

00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:29.640 align:middle line:90%
and lectured and so on.

00:00:29.640 --> 00:00:33.540 align:middle line:84%
And I knew all the time I was in
Africa that my experiences were

00:00:33.540 --> 00:00:36.450 align:middle line:84%
so intense that I would have
to write something about it

00:00:36.450 --> 00:00:37.650 align:middle line:90%
or I couldn't stand it.

00:00:37.650 --> 00:00:40.020 align:middle line:84%
And finally, after
a year, I did.

00:00:40.020 --> 00:00:43.320 align:middle line:84%
The poem is divided
into five parts

00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:44.700 align:middle line:84%
about the different
places I was.

00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:48.613 align:middle line:84%
One's about Senegal, one's
about Gabon, or "Ga-boon,"

00:00:48.613 --> 00:00:50.280 align:middle line:84%
as it's sometimes
pronounced in English,

00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.880 align:middle line:84%
another about the Congo and
Zaire, another about Kenya,

00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:56.800 align:middle line:84%
which is not French, but I was
there on a vacation for a week,

00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:59.700 align:middle line:90%
and the other about Madagascar.

00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:07.040 align:middle line:84%
I think I'll read the
poem about Senegal

00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:08.790 align:middle line:84%
and then a little bit
of the African poem.

00:01:08.790 --> 00:01:11.670 align:middle line:90%


00:01:11.670 --> 00:01:15.240 align:middle line:84%
I'll explain a few things about
the poem and about the place.

00:01:15.240 --> 00:01:19.230 align:middle line:84%
The poem is written
in very short poems.

00:01:19.230 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:90%
They're not exactly stanzas.

00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:24.000 align:middle line:84%
What I decided to do was
to write a short poem

00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:25.650 align:middle line:84%
about every single
idea or feeling

00:01:25.650 --> 00:01:27.190 align:middle line:90%
I had when I was in Africa.

00:01:27.190 --> 00:01:29.370 align:middle line:84%
That's why the poem
is 70 pages long.

00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.430 align:middle line:90%


00:01:32.430 --> 00:01:35.970 align:middle line:84%
So they're all discrete,
separate poems,

00:01:35.970 --> 00:01:38.400 align:middle line:84%
though I've grouped
them-- all the ones

00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:39.840 align:middle line:90%
about the particular country.

00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:44.610 align:middle line:84%
Senegal is on the
northwest coast of Africa,

00:01:44.610 --> 00:01:48.810 align:middle line:84%
it's one of the more prosperous
former French colonies.

00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:54.450 align:middle line:84%
Its capital is Dakar, which
is right on the coast.

00:01:54.450 --> 00:01:58.980 align:middle line:84%
Right off the coast is an
island called the Île de Gorée,

00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:03.300 align:middle line:84%
Goree Island, which is famous,
very oddly, as a tourist spot.

00:02:03.300 --> 00:02:05.700 align:middle line:84%
And what there is
to see there is

00:02:05.700 --> 00:02:08.280 align:middle line:84%
something called the
House of the Slaves, which

00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:12.330 align:middle line:84%
is the last place that
the black slaves were

00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:14.340 align:middle line:84%
in Africa before they
were put on the boats

00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:15.570 align:middle line:90%
and brought to America.

00:02:15.570 --> 00:02:19.080 align:middle line:84%
It's a very strange
tourist attraction.

00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:20.580 align:middle line:84%
Let's see if there's
anything else I

00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:22.170 align:middle line:90%
have to tell you about Senegal.

00:02:22.170 --> 00:02:24.450 align:middle line:84%
Léopold Sédar Senghor,
whom I mention

00:02:24.450 --> 00:02:27.570 align:middle line:84%
toward the end of this poem,
is a well-known French poet

00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:30.120 align:middle line:84%
and also was the president
of Senegal for awhile.

00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:36.150 align:middle line:90%


00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:39.900 align:middle line:84%
Something I refer to
in the first stanza,

00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:41.560 align:middle line:84%
there are a few
French phrases here.

00:02:41.560 --> 00:02:45.030 align:middle line:84%
One is the Department de
l'Encombrement Humain,

00:02:45.030 --> 00:02:51.630 align:middle line:84%
which is the Department of
Carting Away Human Obstruction.

00:02:51.630 --> 00:02:55.380 align:middle line:84%
Actually, in Senegal,
my French friend

00:02:55.380 --> 00:02:58.080 align:middle line:84%
there told me that there
are lots of beggars

00:02:58.080 --> 00:02:59.125 align:middle line:90%
in the capital in Dakar.

00:02:59.125 --> 00:03:01.500 align:middle line:84%
And once a month, the big
truck comes in and carries them

00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:02.700 align:middle line:90%
all out of the country.

00:03:02.700 --> 00:03:06.000 align:middle line:84%
And then they crawl back
to the city after that.

00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:12.360 align:middle line:90%


00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:15.240 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.030 align:middle line:84%
King Behanzu, whom I refer
to in the last stanza,

00:03:18.030 --> 00:03:21.570 align:middle line:84%
you can see a statue of
King Behanzu disguised

00:03:21.570 --> 00:03:24.270 align:middle line:84%
as a shark in the Musée
[? de l'Homme ?] in Paris.

00:03:24.270 --> 00:03:27.570 align:middle line:84%
King Behanzu disguised
himself as a shark in order

00:03:27.570 --> 00:03:30.610 align:middle line:84%
to fight off the French who
were trying to land in Africa.

00:03:30.610 --> 00:03:33.420 align:middle line:84%
Of course, he didn't succeed
since the French had much

00:03:33.420 --> 00:03:37.230 align:middle line:90%
more firepower than he did.

00:03:37.230 --> 00:03:40.980 align:middle line:90%
Senegal, keep your courage up.

00:03:40.980 --> 00:03:42.270 align:middle line:90%
Walk down the street.

00:03:42.270 --> 00:03:45.540 align:middle line:84%
When the leper comes up to
you, say, I am a Muslim.

00:03:45.540 --> 00:03:47.010 align:middle line:90%
Then give him a franc.

00:03:47.010 --> 00:03:49.357 align:middle line:84%
Soon, he will be carted
away by the Department

00:03:49.357 --> 00:03:50.399 align:middle line:90%
de l'Encombrement Humain.

00:03:50.399 --> 00:03:53.040 align:middle line:90%


00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:54.840 align:middle line:84%
Go to the island of
the slaves on Sunday,

00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:56.940 align:middle line:84%
said the Black
cultural attaché, who

00:03:56.940 --> 00:04:00.240 align:middle line:84%
speeded me down hallways
through consular doorways,

00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:02.610 align:middle line:84%
then suddenly back
out onto the street.

00:04:02.610 --> 00:04:04.980 align:middle line:90%
At 5 o'clock, everything closes.

00:04:04.980 --> 00:04:08.820 align:middle line:84%
Or did he say 1 o'clock
or 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock?

00:04:08.820 --> 00:04:11.250 align:middle line:84%
In any case,
everything is closed.

00:04:11.250 --> 00:04:15.030 align:middle line:84%
But I find someone to talk
to in a building, mauve,

00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:18.120 align:middle line:90%
past the horse, white.

00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:19.950 align:middle line:90%
A young man, tall--

00:04:19.950 --> 00:04:23.160 align:middle line:84%
high, rather-- and
skilled at walking fast

00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:25.440 align:middle line:84%
and with his head
on high comes past

00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:31.020 align:middle line:84%
at an amazing angle
and an amazing rate.

00:04:31.020 --> 00:04:33.480 align:middle line:84%
Don't go to the
bars, Jean-Marc said,

00:04:33.480 --> 00:04:35.340 align:middle line:90%
and try to talk to the girls.

00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:37.020 align:middle line:90%
This one is off-limits.

00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:39.100 align:middle line:90%
This one is off-limits.

00:04:39.100 --> 00:04:41.610 align:middle line:90%
I am on-limits with my arms.

00:04:41.610 --> 00:04:44.640 align:middle line:84%
Why that man stuck
with a tooth stick.

00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:46.830 align:middle line:84%
The Lebanese men go
there with their sisters.

00:04:46.830 --> 00:04:51.840 align:middle line:84%
They start to fight if
you talk to or touch one.

00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:54.480 align:middle line:84%
The Russians in
Dakar harbor are not

00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:56.880 align:middle line:84%
allowed to get off
their ship for fear

00:04:56.880 --> 00:04:59.550 align:middle line:84%
that they will be seduced
by capitalism, he said.

00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:02.500 align:middle line:90%
It's the truth.

00:05:02.500 --> 00:05:05.050 align:middle line:84%
In Dakar, you are still
pretty close to Europe.

00:05:05.050 --> 00:05:08.500 align:middle line:84%
But three miles out of town,
you are burning in a pink lake,

00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:12.160 align:middle line:84%
unless you get out of it fast
with your modicum of salt.

00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:15.190 align:middle line:84%
These modicums, grown
additive on the lake banks,

00:05:15.190 --> 00:05:18.280 align:middle line:84%
show white and fair to a
far-off who views them.

00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:22.480 align:middle line:84%
But up near, they stink,
and the Salt Lake burns you.

00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:24.970 align:middle line:84%
And dad, I am
leaving, you do not

00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:28.570 align:middle line:84%
say if you are a member of
this tribe, this special tribe

00:05:28.570 --> 00:05:33.190 align:middle line:90%
of nomads who dredge for salt.

00:05:33.190 --> 00:05:37.120 align:middle line:84%
On the boat to Goree, how
cruel these four Lebanese are,

00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:40.360 align:middle line:84%
led by this one young man
who keeps calling to and then

00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:44.200 align:middle line:84%
laughing at a Mongoloid
of maybe 25 or 30,

00:05:44.200 --> 00:05:48.160 align:middle line:84%
laughing at his clumsy gait and
at his efforts to please them

00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:51.970 align:middle line:90%
in an absurd and helpless way.

00:05:51.970 --> 00:05:55.330 align:middle line:84%
That man on this boat looks
like Mayakovsky, black,

00:05:55.330 --> 00:05:58.630 align:middle line:84%
his face showing his
character and his art,

00:05:58.630 --> 00:06:02.230 align:middle line:84%
his violent, virile, and
touchingly avant-garde,

00:06:02.230 --> 00:06:06.130 align:middle line:90%
futurist, lyric, poetic art.

00:06:06.130 --> 00:06:11.230 align:middle line:84%
Seeds on my head, sitting under
a baobab, big, knotty, tree,

00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:13.960 align:middle line:84%
baobab, we're
spreading all over,

00:06:13.960 --> 00:06:17.590 align:middle line:90%
like a Roman or Athenian map.

00:06:17.590 --> 00:06:19.210 align:middle line:90%
Everything is wrecked.

00:06:19.210 --> 00:06:23.140 align:middle line:84%
Misery, stoniness, and the
color of sickness or dying

00:06:23.140 --> 00:06:26.050 align:middle line:90%
is dancing on it all.

00:06:26.050 --> 00:06:30.520 align:middle line:84%
Tu as le choc, you have
the shock, said Jean-Marc.

00:06:30.520 --> 00:06:32.830 align:middle line:84%
Everybody get when
come to Africa.

00:06:32.830 --> 00:06:35.030 align:middle line:90%
It goes away.

00:06:35.030 --> 00:06:37.600 align:middle line:84%
But it took more than
two days going away.

00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.740 align:middle line:84%
For these two days, I hate
life, Africa, everything.

00:06:41.740 --> 00:06:43.600 align:middle line:90%
Next day, a little better.

00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:48.100 align:middle line:84%
3 weeks later I met an
enchantment, Kenya, Madagascar,

00:06:48.100 --> 00:06:54.370 align:middle line:84%
the sun shock under the place
names, like skin under clothes.

00:06:54.370 --> 00:06:57.490 align:middle line:84%
Greater than the shock of
the insects of the Congo,

00:06:57.490 --> 00:07:00.520 align:middle line:84%
greater than the clock
of Madame N'Zambo's hair,

00:07:00.520 --> 00:07:04.180 align:middle line:84%
it's the shock of poor
people, desperately poor,

00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:08.740 align:middle line:84%
wanting everything, which in
their case is almost nothing,

00:07:08.740 --> 00:07:11.590 align:middle line:90%
everything.

00:07:11.590 --> 00:07:13.540 align:middle line:84%
The man sweeping the
building after dark

00:07:13.540 --> 00:07:17.530 align:middle line:84%
is of a higher caste than the
one who directs the company

00:07:17.530 --> 00:07:20.200 align:middle line:84%
and rules it from
the topmost floor.

00:07:20.200 --> 00:07:24.220 align:middle line:84%
To his air-conditioned office
suite comes Eng-alBaram,

00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:27.910 align:middle line:90%
and the president bows down.

00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:32.560 align:middle line:84%
The slaves were brought in this
way and taken out this way.

00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:34.630 align:middle line:84%
Here is where they stood
waiting for the boat

00:07:34.630 --> 00:07:38.620 align:middle line:84%
to take them to America in
chains, where they would create

00:07:38.620 --> 00:07:43.000 align:middle line:84%
the characters of Darkie and
Mammy, good slave, bad slave,

00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:46.690 align:middle line:84%
hanged man, mulatto,
quadroon, and then

00:07:46.690 --> 00:07:51.250 align:middle line:84%
would change to underprivileged
citizens, preachers, doctors,

00:07:51.250 --> 00:07:56.080 align:middle line:84%
violent transformations, while
Africa stayed here all along,

00:07:56.080 --> 00:07:58.870 align:middle line:84%
visited by rainfall
and heat spells,

00:07:58.870 --> 00:08:04.570 align:middle line:84%
with a different kind of energy
and a different kind of change.

00:08:04.570 --> 00:08:08.860 align:middle line:84%
The partition of Africa takes
place in 18th and 19th century

00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:11.410 align:middle line:90%
Europe on conference tables.

00:08:11.410 --> 00:08:13.420 align:middle line:84%
Here is the place
where one Oolof will

00:08:13.420 --> 00:08:16.420 align:middle line:84%
wear a beret and the
other a bush hat,

00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:19.510 align:middle line:84%
where one will drink wine
and the other feel lost

00:08:19.510 --> 00:08:22.750 align:middle line:90%
without his tea.

00:08:22.750 --> 00:08:25.480 align:middle line:84%
In Dakar at night,
Léopold Sédar Senghor

00:08:25.480 --> 00:08:28.720 align:middle line:84%
is sitting and thinking,
just as Wallace Stevens

00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:30.340 align:middle line:90%
might have wanted him to.

00:08:30.340 --> 00:08:32.710 align:middle line:84%
But he finds he is
not thinking right.

00:08:32.710 --> 00:08:35.499 align:middle line:84%
He eats some moospasla
and goes to sleep.

00:08:35.499 --> 00:08:38.110 align:middle line:90%


00:08:38.110 --> 00:08:40.870 align:middle line:84%
Blue brave flash of
the oceans water,

00:08:40.870 --> 00:08:44.890 align:middle line:84%
like a screen through which I
see the street, the streets,

00:08:44.890 --> 00:08:48.820 align:middle line:84%
the teeming, busy, commercial,
African, impoverished,

00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:52.810 align:middle line:84%
beggar-filled, lavish,
horrible streets of Dakar.

00:08:52.810 --> 00:08:55.300 align:middle line:84%
The city has been left
ajar, fortunately,

00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:59.050 align:middle line:84%
so that the breeze can come
in, although Islam and the rest

00:08:59.050 --> 00:09:02.620 align:middle line:90%
of Dakar don't go out.

00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:04.390 align:middle line:90%
Senghor was president.

00:09:04.390 --> 00:09:07.030 align:middle line:90%
Poets here are residents too.

00:09:07.030 --> 00:09:10.240 align:middle line:84%
Fleeing from Haiti,
Jean Brière and others

00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:14.170 align:middle line:84%
found a free literary
haven in Dakar.

00:09:14.170 --> 00:09:16.840 align:middle line:84%
Oh, the part that's by
the ocean, that's fine,

00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.450 align:middle line:84%
says Jean-Marc, the
part that you see.

00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:21.970 align:middle line:84%
But in the rest of the
country, it's horrible.

00:09:21.970 --> 00:09:27.760 align:middle line:84%
There's no water, dried
out, death to the economy.

00:09:27.760 --> 00:09:31.780 align:middle line:84%
I am like a shark at the
reef, said King Behanzu,

00:09:31.780 --> 00:09:35.320 align:middle line:84%
upon hearing that the French
were debarking at Catarou.

00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:39.070 align:middle line:84%
And he delayed them, but
he could not stay them.

00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:41.740 align:middle line:84%
Of King Behanzu's
defense, there remains

00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:47.160 align:middle line:84%
a statue of King Behanzu
as a shark: "At the Reef."

00:09:47.160 --> 00:09:52.000 align:middle line:90%