The errand- praise poetry
The Errand
E emi m’a r’odo I am off to the river
Yeye mi ran mi’se For my mother’s errand
Yeye mi ran mi’se for my mother’s errand
I’ve been born with a silver lyre
Spinning sweet songs of savannahs
Being the griot of generations
The marabou that never tires of tales
But, but it seemed my tales grew stale
My songs dreary.
The ears of my generation
Are stopped with the wax of tedium.
I, then sought the magic of my lyre
Again, plucking its strings to test for my weakness
Straining my ears to understand how
I failed my homestead.
As I plucked, water built from my eyes
Filled and swelled, ran over, dropped
Into the string of my lyle
Then suddenly, the sky grew bright
With a million tales
And a thousand songs
Waiting to be told
Waiting to be sang.
Then I heard a voice speak
‘Look! You are encompassed by so great
a crowd of witnesses
be not afraid, hold your hand strong
be the one, pluck your string again
that there may be no shame’.
I cast my eyes over the valleys
That beckon me stay
My songs may be old
My tales mundane
Yet they satisfy the cowardly heart
My eyes are drawn to the clouds and the hills
Then I hear the voice speak
Again and again.
So, I go to climb and.
I climb the hill of words
Salute my mothers
Smiths, whose breasts forged the milky words,
From which I suckled.
I climb the hill of music
Greet my sisters
The traditional, nameless singers from the north,
the south, the east and west
Weavers, whose voices were the threads,
That spun the deep blue melodies
That grooved my soul
I climb the hill of power
Ululate my mothers
Chefs, whose fires created gourmets,
Of enduring tastes that fed my soul
To desire and claim freedom.
I climb the hill of beauty
Praise my sisters
Paragons whose feathers,
Pea cocked my pride as a woman
Striding and revelling
In its joys and mysteries.
I climb the hill of knowledge
Pay homage to my mothers
The females who have dared the devils of tradition
And held sway in every position
Of education, industry and society
Crafts people, whose skills created the wider plains,
For my mind to wander and be lifted up
Above and beyond the mundane.
I climb the hills of life
Stand in wonder
Giving respect to every woman
Born and given birth
Yours is the passageway for this traveller
I walk the road and breathe.
Yours is the golden door that prefigured
The sun’s rays on my shivering back
Yours is the road that beckons
Enmeshed in pain, sweat,
Grunts and joy
Swelling and allow me break forth
Into life with a clarion shout
‘Stop! Behold! I am a woman’
Offspring of powerful gods who recreate
In blood, pain and sweat.
I climb the hills
I salute all my mothers, sisters, aunts and kin
I pluck my string, no sound
There is no need
I am blest.
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Comments
The Errand
loved the journey this poem took me on, i can almost 'hear'; it being sung. not qualified to make any suggestions on ryhming scheme. But definetly think new version is an improvement.
favourite lines...
"Weavers, whose voices were the threads,
That spun the deep blue melodies...'
agree with metal monkey...
'Yours is the passageway for this traveller
I walk the road and breathe.' wonderful line unique vision
Out of rhythm
hehe he... This rhythm discussion is very interesting but I'm out of my depths, so I'll keep my comments to other matters ;)
I really enjoyed the 'tale' of this poem, I have a strong affinity for poems that tie the wholeness of humans and nature. I felt a glow of womanly pride! Some of my favourite bits were:
- 'wax of tedium' - yes!
- 'spun the deep blue melodies' (I think spun melodies on its own might even be more interesting)
- 'Yours is the passageway for this traveller' beautiful idea for childbirth
- 'sun's rays on my shivering back' - amazing!
- 'grunts and joy' - lets make a rule that these two words should always be used together!
I thought it was interesting how the poem seemed to have acts - i.e. Act I - involved repetition of 'lyre', Act II - involved repetition of 'I climb', Act II is the the repitition of 'Yours'...
An idea: In the conclusion could it work if all of these elements could be rewoven into the final lines??? I agree that it is a touch long... With a fresh eye perhaps it will be easy to pluck out the lines that are surplus - I personally always need some distance from the poem before I can see this.
Good luck finding your rhythm.
The Errand RSV
I've gone back and looked at the poem and made changes. Is this what you meant Martin?
The Errand
E emi m’a r’odo I am off to the river
Yeye mi ran mi’se For my mother’s errand
Yeye mi ran mi’se for my mother’s errand
I’ve been born with a silver lyre
Spinning sweet songs of savannahs
Being the griot of generations
The marabou that never tires of tales
But, but it seemed my tales grew stale
My songs dreary.
The ears of my generation
Stopped with the wax of tedium.
I, then sought the magic of my lyre
Again, plucking its strings to test for my weakness
Straining my ears to understand how
I failed my homestead.
As I plucked, water built from my eyes
Filled and swelled, ran over, dropped
Into the string of my lyre
Suddenly, the sky grew bright
With a million tales, a thousand songs
Waiting to be told, to be sang.
I heard a voice speak
‘Look! You are encompassed by so great
a crowd of witnesses
be not afraid, hold your hand strong
be the one, pluck your string again
without shame’.
My eyes cast over the valleys
That beckon me stay
My songs may be old, my tales mundane
Yet they satisfy the cowardly heart
My eyes are drawn to the clouds and the hills
I hear the voice speak insistently
So, I go to climb and.
I climb the hill of words
Salute my mothers. Smiths,
whose breasts forged the milky words,
From which I suckled.
I climb the hill of music
Greet my sisters. The traditional,
nameless singers from the north,
south, the east and west
Weavers, whose threaded voices
spun the deep blue melodies
That grooved my soul.
I climb the hill of power
Ululate my mothers. Chefs,
whose fires created gourmets,
Of enduring tastes feeding my soul
To desire and claim freedom.
I climb the hill of beauty
Praise my sisters
Paragons whose feathers,
Pea cocked my pride as a woman
Striding and revelling
In its joys and mysteries.
I climb the hill of knowledge
Pay homage to mothers. Women
who dared the devils of tradition
holding sway in every position
Of education, industry and society
Crafts people, whose skills created the wider plains,
my mind wanders and is lifted above
beyond the mundane.
I climb the hills of life
Stand in wonder, respecting
every woman born, giving birth
Yours is the passageway for this traveller
I walk the road and breathe.
Yours is the golden door that prefigured
The sun’s rays on my shivering back
Yours is the road that beckons
Enmeshed in pain, sweat,
Grunts and joy
Swelling and allow me break forth
Into life with a clarion shout
‘Stop! Behold! I am a woman’
Offspring of powerful gods who recreate
In blood, pain and sweat.
I climb the hills and
Salute all my mothers, sisters, aunts and kin
I pluck my string, no sound
There is no need
I am blest.
Structure and rhythm
E emi m’a r’odo I am off to the river
Yeye mi ran mi’se For my mother’s errand
Yeye mi ran mi’se for my mother’s errand
Is this traditional? I felt it could/should have been a chorus/refrain, marking the structure in the rest of the poem, which is divided into five parts:
1. Self dis-praise
2. Encouragement of the ancestors, location of the ‘I’ within the griot tradition
3. Praise of female ancestors
4. Empowerment/invigoration of the ‘I’ as it realises the attributes of the ancestors in the present
5. Final salute
Personally I feel the poem would benefit from tightening up. Currently 87 lines (chorus/refrain aside). Probably around 60 + chorus/refrain would work well.
Tightening up would also give you an opportunity to look more closely at the rhythm, which wanders around a bit.
Example:
I climb the hill of words
Salute my mothers
Smiths, whose breasts forged the milky words,
From which I suckled.
The story goes that English verse is predominantly metrical; iambic, trochee, anapaest being examples of this. Not very useful and not very accurate. It’s more accurate to describe poetry in English as being characterised by rising and falling stress (English is natively stress timed, other languages are syllable timed) which may be broadly metrical.
Iambic is therefore a rising stress pattern : ‘I climb the hill’ being less stressed – more stressed, less stressed – more stressed.
In the above you switch from a rising stress pattern to a falling stress pattern (more stressed – less stressed) in the third line, the change occurring at breasts / forged. This feels uncomfortable and throws the stanza too far towards prose.
I think if you look carefully at the rhythm the poem will tighten up a lot by itself.
Will do
to be honest, I don't really understand the stress thing, i'm reading the comment again and trying to figure out what i'm meant to do. I understand the fact of English being stress based and if I were to say what i think you were saying, then basically, i have written this as a direct lift from the tonal Yoruba, therefore it throws the structure out of wack?
I have to read more on these forms of verses, that would be my assignment, no?
Or have i gotten everything all mixed up? Help!
Rhythm thing
Think of rhythm as the changes in the amount of effort/emphasis in the words. The more effort/emphasis then generally the more important the word or word part. There is a scale for this, loosely:
0 – no effort
1 – minimum
2 – low medium
3 – high medium
4 – maximum
c – caesura (pause, which is in effect a syllable and may or may not carry stress)
0 and c frequently confused. If we put this aside the lines
I climb the hill of words
Salute my mothers
Smiths, whose breasts forged the milky words,
From which I suckled.
in stress terms are as follows :
1 3 1 3 1 3
1 3 2 3 1
3 2 4 4 1 3 1 3
1 3 2 3 1
A few of the stresses might be slightly more or less depending on how much stress you place whilst reading, for example the ‘I’ in ‘I suckled’ can be read with more or less stress. I stress it at 2 but other people might stress it at 1 (and a few might chose 3, but that I think would destroy the sense)
laid out in a line you have :
1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 4 / 4 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1
The arrangement is in pairs of syllables, rising pairs up to breasts, falling pairs from forged. The 4 4 1 of ‘breasts forged the’ forces the reader to change stress pattern and not read ‘forged’ as an anomaly.
I’m unfamiliar with the tonal rhythms of Yoruba but as a direct lift they don’t appear to translate well into English. Your job then is to bring the tonality back but within the context of a different language.
If you want ideas about the different rhythms and tonalities English is capable of I suggest reading W H Auden. Within the context of translation I suggest the following web site, run by SOAS (School of African and Oriental Studies, solid colonial name!) :
http://www.poetrytranslation.org/homes
Currently no translations from Yoruba but useful for the notes by the translators.
Hope this helps :)
Errand poem
Hi Abi, can you give us some background on it? its beautifully lyrical: like it is meant to be sung?
Chant
This was originally written for a women's conference and was to be performed with a chorus, so the chorus sing the yoruba chorus while i chanted the lines. i have adjusted many of the lines now, basically revised it to fit this new purpose.
Thanks! i was worried, it would lose that lyric thing. Many thanks