As Long As Trees Take Root in the Earth: and Other Poems

by Alain Mabanckou, Nancy Naomi Carlson (Translation)

A hopeful, music-infused poetry collection from Congolese poet Alain Mabanckou.

These compelling poems by novelist and essayist Alain Mabanckou conjure nostalgia for an African childhood where the fauna, flora, sounds, and smells evoke snapshots of a life forever gone. Mabanckou’s poetry is frank and forthright, urging his compatriots to no longer be held hostage by the civil wars and political upheavals that have ravaged their country and to embrace a new era of self-determination where the village roosters can sing again.
 
These music-infused texts, beautifully translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson and supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, appear together in English for the first time. In these pages, Mabanckou pays tribute to his beloved mother, as well as to the regenerative power of nature, and especially of trees, whose roots are a metaphor for the poet’s roots, anchored in the red earth of his birthplace. Mabanckou’s yearning for the land of his ancestors is even more poignant because he has been declared persona non grata in his homeland, now called Congo-Brazzaville, due to his biting criticism of the country’s regime. Despite these barriers, his poetry exudes hope that nature’s resilience will lead humankind on the path to redemption and reconciliation.

Genres: Poetry

124 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 2007

About the author

Alain Mabanckou was born in 1966 in Congo-Brazzaville (French Congo). He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he teaches literature at UCLA, having previously spent four years at the University of Michigan. Mabanckou will be a Fellow in the Humanities Council at Princeton University in 2007-2008. One of Francophone Africa's most prolific contemporary writers, he is the author of six volumes of poetry and six novels. He received the Sub-Saharan Africa Literary Prize in 1999 for his first novel, Blue-White-Red, the Prize of the Five Francophone Continents for Broken Glass, and the Prix Renaudot in 2006 for Memoirs of a Porcupine. He was selected by the French publishing trade journal Lire as one of the fifty writers to watch out for in the coming century. His most recent book is African Psycho.

Reviews

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"beaten down by so many white seasons
I'll succumb one day
I know it

but someplace there'll be a tree
the same that moved its branches in my poems
a rônier palm with leaves turning brown
whose sap will freely flow

I'll sleep beside my dreams
my childhood will melt in the morning mist
my spirit will follow the trampling of herds
a swallow will take to the air
carefully grazing the family plot
my mother's shape will emerge at last from the gloom"



I read Alain Mabanckou's novel, The Death of Comrade President (tr. Helen Stevenson) early last year and definitely plan to read more of his fiction. When I saw Seagull was publishing his poetry collection, I had to get it during the sale. His verses are spare and sparse, displaying a rich economy of language. None of them have titles and there is little punctuation. They tend to feel like rhythmic musical fragments which come together mosaical, a book-length poem, striving towards the unity of ideas and themes that are fleeting and grounded simultaneously.

His mother and motherland are both recurring figures and although his relationship with the latter is more fraught than the former, there is much poignancy as he yearns for both. Trees tower over these verses, their roots going deep into the earth and holding it together. They are regenerative, a symbol of hope, and as long as they take root in the earth, there is a chance for the human to remain. The collection is closed by an essay, "An Open Letter to Those Who are Killing poetry", where Mabanckou is hilarious and irreverent, launching wholesale criticism.

[joanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce livre regroupant l'œuvre poétique du poète congolais Alain Mabanckou est une très chouette surprise. J'ai beaucoup aimé sa manière d'utiliser la Nature comme image poétique. Une logique, une récurrence, s'installe dans les métaphores au fil des recueils (l'arbre, ses branches, les oiseaux...) et tout fait sens.

Deux poèmes favoris:
"la patrie est une herbe
qui prospère
sur les terres vagabondes
la pluie des larmes l'enracine
dans l'humus
l'exil est son engrais" (p.121, Les arbres aussi versent des larmes)

"il est encore dit
dans le village d'où je viens
que les arbres aussi versent des larmes
lorsque perdure
l'absence des oiseaux
sur leurs branches" (p.150, Les arbres aussi versent des larmes)

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Long as Trees Take Root in the Earth: and Other Poems includes two of Mabanckou's poetry collections (When the rooster announces the dawn of another day... ,2000 and As long as trees take root in the earth, 2003, resp.), each a sequence of terse lines that flow chantlike into one long poem so beautifully translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson. The poetry is direct, critical, full of longing, and hopeful at once.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful anthropomorphism of nature and whimsical depiction of rebuilding after civil war. author has fascinating francophone background living in congo (republic) and passionate stance on poetry.

[Joycelyn Longdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant selection of poems.