bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2012) — Summer 2012 // Été 2012, pp. 20–21
Editor’s Note: Poetry is often deeply personal and it helps to know something of the poet before you explore a poet’s world. What bout learned: Evelyn Voigt managed programmes and projects with the Canadian International Development Agency in East Africa, the Horn, and Egypt. She was born a German prisoner of war in what is now Zimbabwe. Her mother fled Germany at 18 because she was Jewish. Her father, a young German pioneer in Africa, was ostracized by the Germans for marrying her. Both were imprisoned by the British because they were German. In 1948, the family was allowed to return to their isolated farm in Tanganyika. Outside the homestead, Africa teemed with millennia of oral traditions. Wildlife roamed the bush. Expansive vistas opened out over the Great Rift Valley below. Inside the farmhouse, without running water or power, telephone or other industrial comforts, German traditions reigned supreme: home made gingerbread cookies, Christmas trees, and Brothers Grimm at bed time. Then came British-type boarding schools, Dickensian in their rules, and ultimately Canadian citizenship. From these extremes emerged a fascination with unity in diversity, and the absurdity of discrimination, most often explored through her career in international development and spoken soundscapes fed by music. She has performed in Canada and abroad.
Solid rocks with gossamer wings
Solid rocks with gossamer wings
Out we ran each morning chasing sunshine and cattle,
our whims, and our friends through criss-crossed footpaths
of African childhood, bare toes curling in the dust,
infinite adventure at our little feet,
Greetings shouted from afar, stranger to stranger.
“Kamw e e e n e. Mngo a a a a ge?” in drawn out song.
As we passed: “O o on g o, m’noge yuveve”
Warm. Fleeting. Human.
And always the shadowy leopard.
Snakes, some we played with. Dank, dark earth.
Emerald, turquoise, ruby spiders, diamonds ringed in grace,
spanning glistening lianas. Rainbows in towering newborn
skies, drops of dew on hairy insect backs.
Fearful yet excited, we roasted corn on windswept plateau.
(“If you eat lying down, your mother will die.”
“If you both blow on the fire at the same time,
your heads will fuse.”)
Such freedom! Such stricture!
For, one day it seemed we were still running wild
in tiny-footprint-exhilaration.
The next we awoke at boarding school.
Uniformed at the age of six!
With drums to rise, to march, two by two,
to eat, to class, to lunch, to supper. Lights out! Silence!
Six months of regulation, of complications unique to a
German child in a post-war British school in Africa:
While we wait for the teacher, my little classmates ring my desk.
They stab accusing fingers in my direction, and chant:
“Yah! Yah! You lost the war! Yah! Yah! You lost the war!”
By then my English was good enough for me to know
what it was to lose something,
but not yet to know what it was to lose a war.
I remember thinking that if only I could find the war,
everything would be alright again.
Weaverbird Dreamku
Weaverbird Dreamku
Thorn trees rake blue skies
Busy birds weave yellow dreams
Shadows dance
Lament of the Child Soldier
Lamen or me ma oorarer
In my barrel is the heart of a mother Der
and in my heart, like a distant shadow,
my yearning for childhood.
Am I child? I do not know.
I think I left that journey many years ago.
Or is it only days since I was torn, in screaming darkness,
from my mother’s arms,
from sun-drenched corn and cattle song;
to the seductive power of the gun?
What am I now, as in the dark I Now
lead them to my village home?
What am I now? Am I child? Am I soldier?
Of Uganda, Or Sudan? I no longer know.
What to choose, to think, to feel? I no longer know.
Child? Man? Beast? I no longer know.
In my barrel is the heart of a mother
and in my heart, like a distant shadow,
my yearning for love. *Titled o
Which is stronger: the shadow in my heart? matern
Or the fear of my colonel?
My trigger finger hovers…
Dead Mothers Cannot Cry
ead Mothers Cannot Cry*
She speaks to her womb
Now empty of child
Now filled with acid
Magic potions
Leaves
Rusting metal
She whispers to her womb
ow empty of another mouth to feed
Her mourning children gather
She strains to see their smiles
Beyond the tears
At least, she thinks,
Dead mothers cannot cry
d derived from BBC documentary on
ernal mortality entitled Dead moms don’t cry
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2012) — Summer 2012 // Été 2012, pp. 20–21. Read the rest of this issue →
