13 June 2016 by Jessica Palmer
Review of Patrick Djob’s Entre Ciel et Terre: Poèmes
Corry Cropper
Brigham Young University
cropper@byu.edu
Patrick Djob. Entre Ciel et Terre: Poèmes. Nice: Éditions Bénévent, 2007. 46 pp.
Patrick Djob’s personal and compelling new book, Entre ciel et terre, represents what I would describe as an example of Neo-Negritude poetry. I say Negritude because Djob himself openly acknowledges Senghor as an influence. Senghor’s imprint is evident from the first poem of the collection, “Afrique, ô mon Afrique.”
Afrique
dis-moi qu’un jour prochain
je te reverrai souriante,
dis-moi qu’un jour prochain
je te reverrai triomphante
de ces fils
qui te dépouillèrent des habits
de ta virginité
toi Vierge parmi les Vierges;
de ces fils
incestueux qui offrirent
ton corps aux anges blancs,
bourreaux de ta chasteté
au midi de ta jeunesse. . . . (6)
The hopeful optimism (“dis-mois qu’un jour prochain je te reverrai triomphante”) of an Africa freed from European control, the contrast between a beautiful, pure Africa and a corrupting, white oppresser are typical of the Negritude poetry of the forties. Elsewhere, the poet describes Africa as the “Mère des matins calmes” (37) and asks
Jusqu’à quand
les balles des martyrs
auront la couleur de ta chair
la force de ton amour maternel
et l’instinct inflexible de ta race? (38)
thereby painting, in Senghor-like fashion, an Africa on the verge of rediscovering its strength and its identity and ready to shake off oppression to unite against unjust usurpers.
The influence of Senghor is perhaps most evident in a striking poem that describes Africa as a beautiful and maternal figure, not unlike the Africa of Senghor’s “Femme nue, femme noire.”
Noirs, les diamants scintillants
de tes yeux insondables . . .
Noir, le bronze de ta peau,
lumière d’or
cadeau d’éternité . . .
Noires, tes petites couronnes
tourbillons feutrés de mes songes,
grandeur de ta race
royale
noires, tes hanches lourdes
d’où naquit l’humanité
car ma soeur
tu es femme
et Mère Mère. (29–30)
As in Senghor’s poem, Africa and the color black become symbols of life and beauty. Where in Senghor’s poem “les reflets de l’or ronge ta peau,” here “le bronze de ta peau” is a rich “lumière d’or.”
I say Neo-Negritude because Djob’s poetry speaks to the experience of children of immigrants who continue to struggle to find their place within the framework of the French cultural and economic system. Djob, a French professor in a banlieue lycée, expresses disillusionment at the educational system for validating only one historical perspective and marginalizing the cultural traditions of so many of today’s citizens. This alienation is most evident in the poem, “Dans tes plaines du nord . . .”
Dans tes plaines du nord
inconnues de mes songes barbares . . .
dans tes forêts du nord
inconnues de mes esprits familiers,
sous ton soleil de glace incompris
sous ton hiver de pierre redouté
sous ton printemps si souvent avorté
sous ton soleil blême infidèle à ses promesses,
j’ai craché mon sang ancestral
au son de ton emblème de France
j’ai crevé le sang de mon coeur
de haine mystique
au nom de ta civilisation!
mon sang noir déjà fatigué
de siècles de misères . . .
et pour héritage
de mes fièvres fraternelles
quelques… babels de pierre
où croupit ma race
bannie
de tes gloires superbesliberté, égalité, fraternité! (26)
The separation of the line “liberté, égalité, fraternité” from the rest of the poem implies an insurmountable chasm between the ideals of the republic and the speaker. It underscores that the black poet (Djob is the son of immigrants from Cameroon) who has given his life (“j’ai craché mon sang”) in the service of France (in Djob’s case through his teaching and writing) remains banished and alienated from the promised rights of her citizens.
Djob’s poems are not all so grave. Many of them, though not without a certain social edge, are playful, even funny. The poem, “Que tu roules carosse . . .” is cleverly constructed and darkly humorous, as is the poem “Comment trouver les mots?”
Comment trouver les mots?
Quand les mots
glissent
lisses
entre mes lèvres . . . (16)
Djob’s use of free verse is one of the defining characteristics of his work and in an introductory poem, a sort of “au lecteur,” Djob justifies this stylistic choice.
Car je ne suis ni Baudelaire ni Hugo . . .
Je parle de mort, d’amour… de tout,
Sans plier ni sous la forme ni sous
La rigueur,
Car la poésie n’a qu’un temps, qu’un souffle,
Qu’une saveur. (5)
While acknowledging the influence of nineteenth-century poets, particularly Hugo and Baudelaire (and, he told me, Laforgue), here Djob renounces the rigorous use of both rhyme and standard verse length. That he places “La rigueur” on a line by itself suggests his desire to maintain a certain independence from traditional French poetic form. And the use of free verse works very well for Djob, whose poems freely alternate between cutting social criticism, witty meta-poetry and sensual beauty all in an interrogative quest for identity, an identity the lies somewhere between “heaven” (for Djob this is the ideal, the infinite, the site of inspiration and inclusion) and “earth” (a space of alienation, solitude and exclusion).