ON LANGUAGE ISOLATES

                                           
"Emancipation Songs"

for Vera Nondai'isiri

Each Sunday I wake up
to a bright morning
I celebrate with my God
these songs of emancipation

That I am no longer slave
to my own words, to my own songs
to each word I utter -
nor see myself as a language isolate
like a Kasunda
of rural west Nepal

My songs
are the aftermath songs
of emancipation
songs of celebrations eternal!

Who was that reggae priest
who sang, "Emancipate yourself
from mental slavery"?

My songs are free
My life is freedom
I am slave to none

From SAILING ON A BOUNTIFUL ARK, a forthcoming publication by The Anuki Country Press.
                                                            

Our Jeffrey Febi Stands for Elections

                                                                        

Candidate for the Lufa Open Electorate, 2012 Papua New Guinea National Elections

SOMETHING HEAVY HAD SETTLED on my head. I thought I felt my brain inflate and deflate rapidly. I didn’t know I wasn’t thinking. Then I heard a sweet voice cut through this wall of dense confusion.

“Mane!” I turned and saw my concerned mother. The wrinkles around her eyes have grown, her hair more grey. And, clutched firmly in her palm at the end of a frail extended arm, a kaukau. “You must eat,” her voice sounding the more alarming because of its concern.

The scene was more of a successful gathering than one of failure but I, with less than zero experience in crowd control and management, was more worried than every other person who approached to greet me.

After I nominated to officially become a candidate for the Lufa Open Electorate in the Eastern Highlands, I met the crowd. They didn’t come in hundreds; there were over a thousand people.

Men, women, boys, girls, children and babies; some had walked hundreds of miles, taking days to arrive at Lufa government station to witness this event.

Others have flown to Goroka then caught rides on PMVs (public motor vehicles) to Lufa. They are the people of remote rural Lufa; those who sing: ‘They call us camels; they call us white horses; they call us semi-trailers…’

The ensuing excitement and confusion (as I saw it) was over a thousand voices to listen to and innumerable hands to shake and many more bodies to hug. It was overwhelming.

PEOPLE OF LUFA, THE TIME OF POETRY HAS COME. IT IS TIME NOW TO RAISE THAT SONG OF CAMELS, THAT SONG OF COFFEE WHOSE AROMA IS KNOWN AND TASTED THE WORLD OVER!

THANKS TO JEFFREY FEBI OUR BODIES AND SOULS NOW AWAKEN TO THE NEW SOUNDS THAT DAWN BRINGS. AND EVEN IF IT MEANS TAKING THE PEN RIGHT UP TO THE DOORSTEPS OF THE NATIONAL PARLIAMENT, THAT WE SHALL! FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR PEOPLE.

LET THE WRITER WIELD HIS PEN IN THE PARLIAMENT. LET THE LAWS OF THE LAND BE RE-VISITED, REVISED AND RE-WRITTEN, IF NECESSARY, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR FAMILY, OUR COMMUNITY, OUR PEOPLE AND OUR COUNTRY.

ASK FOR A WRITER’S CHOICE AND THE WRITER CHOOSES THE WRITER.

PEOPLE OF LUFA! THE WRITERS OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA GIVE YOU JEFFREY FEBI. VOTE HIM AND YOU ARE VOTING THE SOUL OF THE NATION INTO PARLIAMENT!

I thought there was no order, and something was brewing. Any moment from now it would burst and someone would be hurt. A child, a man, a woman, anyone…

Just to feed such a crowd was no easy task. A group of men and women in their mid-30s made it seem less arduous. They, young and untested, worked on and on.

There were peaks and troughs, some of which almost derailed their efforts. But at the day’s end, not a single hungry soul was to be found.

I, on the other hand, with less village experience and knowledge, couldn’t envision a successful ending.

This, coupled with the day’s heat and smell of the crowd, almost laid the foundations for a brain explosion.

As the election days unravel along with their latent challenges, I am hoping and praying I’ll be able to cope.

AND THERE YOU HEARD IT ALL. THE VOICE OF THE WRITER!

JEFFREY FEBI FOR LUFA OPEN 2012! 

Wording by Jeffrey Febi courtesy of PNG Attitude. Additional words of support by The Anuki Country Press.

Maintaining ownership of their craft

Two women, driven by the power of the pen, decide to write things that mean a great deal to them. But as we look at their work closely we realize the amount of courage that these two have in jotting down on paper what they truly believe in, indeed the legacy that makes up not only what they are as individuals but also all of us as Papua New Guineans.

In their musings these two women, Emma Wakpi and Regina Dorum, remind us of the musings of that other woman writer, the Australian Drusilla Modjeska, who says that in order to write good literature one must have “the courage to write from the heart – and to return to draft after draft.” That is their craft. That is what they maintain as truly their own and in so doing make the rest of us proud.

Storyboard is pleased to bring to its readers parts of these women’s work. Emma Wakpi wrote about three men of influence in her life. Only one of them, the uncle, is represented in this article.

What my uncle taught me
The most fun you will have in your life is when you take the time to make life fun for others. 

BY EMMA WAKPI

AT A TIME WHEN THE FOCUS of the world is upon Papua New Guinea and its attitude toward women, I have been reflecting upon the male influences in my life.

I know there are good men in PNG and we need their support and encouragement in order to create a safer more equitable society for both sexes. I want to introduce to you three such men who have impacted my life - my grandfather, uncle and father.
These men influenced me in unique ways and the lessons learned were not from longwinded lectures (although they were prone to those too) but rather from observing how they lived their lives.
My uncle Dau was always looking for ways to make life interesting and fun for the children in his family.  He didn’t need money or sophisticated gaming devices; his props were long bamboo sticks, an old trap made from a mishmash of chicken wire and wood and his own self.
I recall on twilight evenings squealing with glee as he would cut bamboo poles to our size and race around wildly with us hitting at small bats that came out just before dusk, flying low over our huts. If we were successful in catching any he made them seem like the best “snacks” we’d ever had.
Other times we “helped” prepare his trap and he would make a great ceremony out of it. We would take it to a “special” place and stand some feet back whilst he would sneak further with exaggerated caution then dramatically chant a loud rhyme (usually thought up right there) and set it.
The fun was in preparing the trap, if he caught something we all rejoiced if he didn’t we were disappointed but it was always the affair of the preparation that got us all excited.  And oh he could tell stories.
His stories engrossed us. Some were fables and rhymes, others he just thought up but it had him singing, crying and gyrating in the dim smoke filled hut grabbing our imaginations and flinging them to far of places where mythical beings and men lived, fought and died.
Sometimes his stories were epics and would be told night by night. At such times he could get us to do anything to ensure that the story would be continued in the evenings.
Like my grandfather he too has left us but the simple act of bringing fun and wonder into the lives of others is a legacy which I cherish.   

A tribute to Papua New Guinean writers of old

BY REGINA DORUM

MOST OF US TAKE THIS COMPUTER AGE for granted. I couldn’t help but admire those authors from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Man, talk of using typewriters and handwriting drafts! It must have been a pretty mega headache with more time spent on dictionaries and libraries.

They are hardworking and committed people and we the current generation must appreciate their work fully and truly. For such men as Vincent Eri, Sir Paulias Matane, Sir Albert Maori Kiki, Sir Ignatius Kilage, John Kasaipwalova, Russell Soaba and others where English is but a second language, I cannot help but admire them.
As Papua New Guineans, we truly should be proud of them. They thought and thought and searched and searched. The library became their home and the dictionary their bible. The countless hours of work they did for us, their future generations, so we could have an insight into their lives and appreciate their work.
I always thought that writing a book is easy, just like reading it—especially fiction. Now I will never look at it the same way again. You simply have to appreciate every word written, its uses in descriptive writing that captures your imagination and draw the authors view into your mind.
Most times when I read books, I just read for the story that it tells but not with a writer’s eyes.  I never really valued their evocative words that embed the picture into my mind.
Now that I am almost in the middle of my book, I went back to re-reading my novels— this time with a writer’s eyes— and I am overwhelmed with the play of words and their proficiently in the turns and twist of events.
The first time I entered the Crocodile Prize, I mentioned that anyone can be a writer, but I take back those words. Anyone can, but you have to learn and grow each time you write.
You have to put your thinking caps on and express yourself in a way that your readers will fully comprehend what your intentions are. Anyone can be a writer, but then, not just anyone. It takes a lot of self-discipline and courage and a lot of brain-wrecking moments.
When I started writing my book, I just wrote as the words came and I was sort of full of pride—at first. But then as I wrote on, pressure built up. I had to research to describe everything from my character’s clothes to their houses to food to everything that we take for granted.
Man, it was hell of a job and still is. Sometimes I would stare into space for hours just thinking and looking a bit lost, even in between conversation. My friends thought I was on my way to Laloki Mental Institute!
I went back on re-reading my books; I found out that my first ten thousand words were rubbish! Yes, I got the story, but hell, I was not descriptive enough! I had to re-read, rewrite and re-read and re-write! And as I wrote on, new characters entered and my location changed and villages had to be made into cities and east had to be west! Directions and maps gave me the biggest headache.
From one article I read on writer’s guidelines, there are no laws when you write a fiction. You can write whatever you please but you cannot lie or break your own rules either. Some things had to be true so that you capture your reader’s attention and make them want to find out more. I had to make my characters and their lives real and it is very frustrating.
Once I was reading a Stephen King novel and at the end, he gave insights into being a writer. He mentioned how he had to write his drafts thirty times to finally get it right. God help me if I will write my book thirty times! I have not even completed the first draft!
I would like to thank the writers of the past for this inspiration and hope that many Papua New Guineans use the opportunity we have and be like them, or even greater. And I would like to express my sincere gratitude to PNG Attitude for giving us modern and young PNG writers  inspiration and assistance. No dream is bigger than us.

You play with words, in your minds.
So that we may comprehend
You wrote them down
So that we may recollect
You put inspiration into our hearts
So that we can be like you
You sat up sleepless hours
So that your dreams may come into life
Now you are our shining star
So we are grateful
Thank you.

Thanks to PNG Attitude for permission to reproduce parts of Regina Dorum's and Emma Wakpi's work here.

PNG Poetry Taking Form

                                                                

On September 15^th 2011 at the Australian High Commission I talked about the importance of sticking to rules even in writing poetry.

Rules are important because without them experts like Max Weber say that everything around us would be in chaos.

So at that writers’ workshop I talked about, among other rules, forms in writing poetry. Virtually every poet in the world that we read about is familiar with rules in poetry. And these rules are your rhymes, your meters, your beat, your tempo in voice, your sense of harshness and of being gentle in the use of language, and so on. But most important of all the form of poetry.

Form in poetry talks about style of presentation. Let’s see what you’ve just scribbled, and that sort of thing. Is it a ballad, a ballade, a Shakespearean sonnet or what? What about an haiku? Have you ever tried that? And the villanelle, the sestina, the terca rima? Oh, dear, the list goes on.

This year at the Crocodile Literary camp so much poetry has been received in the competitions. But there is very little of poetry dealing with form or style of writing. Only a few days ago did the poet Michael Dom submit two or three poems with experimentations on the form. His idea of the sonnet, for example. And later through word of encouragement from colleagues, the villanelle.

What all that entails is the significance of our poets taking up form (or rules) and regarding that as a matter of importance. There are so many things we would like to talk about through poetry. True. But sometimes there are no better preoccupations in store for us than the mind that relaxes itself in this idea of experimentation. Experimenting with form in poetry is a kind of relaxation if your day at work has been a little rugged. So you sit down and write a sonnet. And in doing so your take your mind away from the humdrums of the preceding hours of the day. And what better form to experiment with than the sonnet.

Here’s Michael Dom’s experiment with the sonnet form.

Sonnet 3: I met a pig farmer the other day

At the foot of Mount Giluwe we met
A place where they say ice falls from the sky
We spoke of pork and the lack of good vets
As we toil’d in his village piggery
Each planning how his stock would reach market
Did we both share a wish that pigs could fly?

Agriculture is our backbone we say
(Rhetorical ruse on farmers always)
Yet in our grand plans for development
We have forgotten what that really meant
From the highlands to the coastal islands
The struggle to feed ourselves never ends

If you met those who’s unheard voices cry
You too would join me in questioning, why?

BY MICHAEL DOM

Penned at Labu Station at 3:15am on 17/05/2012.

A sonnet runs for fourteen lines with, if the writer chooses, a series of couplets that rhyme. All those rhyming couplets add up to the required fourteen lines. Sometimes the rhyming pattern can vary, so instead of just aa, bb right through you might have a pattern of abab cdcd and so on. Other times the sonnet breaks itself up to two stanzas instead of one, but those two stanzas must still consist of fourteen lines.

A sonnet deals with one’s love for one’s country, one’s love for God, one’s love for loved ones, or even one’s love for one’s enemies. You don’t believe in this last point, do you? What that simply means is that poetry can be so noble that it can treat its own enemies with honour.

In the Shakespearean tragedy, Coriolanus, when the anti-hero is slain even the general under whose command he is slain orders his men carry him with honour. Yet he was the worst of enemies they had ever walked out of Rome for the poor plebeians.

Michael Dom’s persona does not go to the extremes of Coriolanus, yet the criticism he offers for lack of support in a piggery business implies that he “loves” what he is criticising. Now we know what the sonnet does or should, don’t we?

The sonnet form does not have to stick to the rules of following a certain rhyming pattern. It can also appear as free verse. But it retains its significance as a sonnet by sticking to the fourteen line principle.

Other sonnets known, also run for 15 instead of 14 lines, examples of which can be found in Gerard Manly Hopkins’ poetry.

Coming back to the rules of poetry, I believe it is absolutely necessary to write in various forms that are available in poetry writing. Poetry means nothing else other than experimenting with words and generally language. Who would want to quarrel when the best remedy language itself can offer us is take our minds away from it all?

We close these remarks with a poem, this time not quite the one that would stick to rules, but the one that would invite us to look at ourselves once all over again, some other way. But, in the final analysis, it is poetry.

The Panguna Mine  

                By Simon Garana

No one knew for years
But history can tell in advance
There was gold and copper at Panguna
Multiplied with millions of copper ore deposit
All over the Emperor Ranges.

Copper copper and gold in every edge of rocks
So precious and valuable you are
Never say you are worthless
For the entire world depend on you
For their economy and development.

But how can one see your precious image
When you are hiding seven hundred feet under
Where it is impossible to dig you out
Only when there is monster equipment.

And here they come with a white tag
Conzinc Rio Tinto of Australia
With a team of technical experts and labour
Building camps and fire everywhere
Ready to overthrow the secrets of Panguna.

Never say the team can’t make it
For within days the Java River and sister rivers
All turned dark brown from natural white
For the fish and eels disappearing
And the trees standing naked
While the plants are gone for good.

And no more happiness for the landowner
For she comes home empty handed
And he comes with anger and frustration
For heaven’s sake everything is gone
With the use of poisonous chemicals
They cannot bear the hardship no more.

Standing over the Guava Hill
Overlooking the huge Panguna Mine
Francis Ona the true landowner
He sees Panguna disappearing fast
Then says no word
And takes up arms to shoot and kill.

No more days of dreaming
Total darkness over Loloho Arawa Panguna
Power pylons lay on the ground
Soon the mining town running empty
For their safety was critical.

Hiding in thick jungle of Panguna
Never say Joseph Kabui is a fighter
For he is a peacemaker
Who fought for peace on Bougainville.

Gone are the BCL regimes
Today ABG is negotiating
For a better deal
For the landowners to enjoy the benefits
With Bougainville as a whole.

Simon Garana (59) was born at Lemankoa on Buka in Bougainville.  He is a former Chief Executive Officer of the Division of Information, Culture and Tourism with the Bougainville Administration.  He is now retired.

Poems represented in this article come from the Crocodile Literary Competitions of 2012 courtesy of PNG Attitude. This article also serves as a reminder that the competitions close next week, 31^st May 2012. If you have that villanelle or sestina stuck away in the cupboards somewhere, send it along now. The prizes are voluminously rich.

Published in the Post Courier’s Weekend Courier, Saturday 26^th May 2012.

ABOVE THE FRAY I

KUBURABASU

Da kuburabasu green

Over the years of your poets' dreams

You patched up each fragment of green

From the broken kwamra that everywhere

Held to keep the country green

Then it was time to cultivate the savannah

To speak of green things in mystic chambers

Of voices holding out in the low savannah

And of kindling found among dying embers

For the baking of clay in the high savannah

The hiri would come with its winds

And you would be troubled by its echoeings

Of voices not of the laurabada winds

Wondering if too in such undertakings

Build towers out of trade winds

The sand will see its first morning

Of thatched castles, airborne as islands

Along cliff-faces this morning

And the city will be stone with multiple hands

Juggling severed roofs on a sky-less morning

So you leave us, kuburabasu green

Tropical ruins across this savannah

Hamlets blown ablaze by the winds

And for the morning

OndoBondo on the green

To the memory of Doreen Jiregari


From KWAMRA: a season of harvest

LAST HOURS

                                                    
from the ridges
echoes are distant strangers
in the harbour


not even poem bridges
fly midnight wings
of escape


my songs are shattered evenings
day-tattered emblems
and hope in ruins
smoking the hour


To the memory of Regis Stella, a worthy and learned colleague, novelist, critic and friend.

                                                                   

UNFOLDING LIKE PETALS

THE WAY WE SEE PAPUA NEW GUINEA LITERATURE

To our valuable viewers. The second poem that appeared herein, written after Robert Frost's THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, was deleted at the request of the author. This is because the late Dr. Regis Stella deserves a better tribute poem by way of sentiment. We are still looking for a suitable poem as a substitute. Any offers on this would help us a great deal.

                                                                            

Certain March nights

                                                  

The road was deep that the wind went down certain March nights and woke us unknown like the first time.

That sentence doesn’t quite make sense. It doesn’t seem to want to explain anything, let alone mention roads that are deep, the wind going down certain March nights and then waking us to some moment of unfamiliarity.

For a moment we let time stand still. We feel undecided somewhat about sentences like this one.

But good poetry often causes us to behave that way. Good poetry tugs at our senses, in an attempt to bring out so much goodness that lies deeply embedded in us. Good poetry seeks to find what is pleasantly familiar in us.

The Italian poet and the 1959 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Salvatore Quasimodo, to whom the opening sentence above can be attributed, takes poetry as such. To him poetry reveals those inner and personal sentiments that we as readers recognize as our own.

But, of course, we need only wait for such an explanation from the poet himself before we can be sure about the meanings of certain utterances like the one above.

Further, we get the feeling that with Quasimodo’s we are reading poetry of the deepest kind, even if the descriptions provided us are of the familiar and the simplest in form. There is so much exile in Quasimodo’s poetry, so much talk of rugged landscape, rocky terrain, steep climbs to a brightening hilltop and the wind that can be friendly and mysterious at once.

In Professor Michael Campo’s translation of one such poem of Quasimodo’s (Agrigentum Road) we get the same sort of feeling about the wind and familiar rustic albeit in our PNG terms rural landscape.

“There a wind endures that I remember/kindled in the manes of horses/racing aslant across the plains, a wind/that stains and scars the sandstone.../the sound that drifts toward the sea/where Hesperus trails at early morn/the jew’s harp’s melancholic twang/in the throat of the cart man/who slowly ascends the moon-cleansed hill...”

Even the rural landscape sounds nobler than we can imagine. Note the “twang” of the jew’s harp “in the throat of the cart man.” Ain’t that something to hear and behold of the village scene – aside from carts and horses which we do not as yet customarily have? Or the cart man’s solemn progression upwards, as is always the key practice in human endeavour, towards a “moon-cleansed hill”?

Now storyboard’s purpose in mentioning Quasimodo here is for us to relish once all over again the gentleness of voice found in poetry. And if there aren’t any Papua New Guineans who have heard of this poet before may we be forgiven, as the poet’s relevance to the muse in the making especially in our context can be desirable as much as pressing. How many times do we write poetry only to realize we could use a second opinion? To storyboard, then, Quasimodo’s the best advice there can be not only for poetry lovers but for those who would want to jot down a line or two.

A Quasimodo persona does not explain what goes on in his mind. He says things in a way that we understand what he’s getting at. Where, for example, we could say our piece in a tone of vehemence if fate had denied us a certain sentiment, Quasimodo’s persona would rather do so in the sound of the wind across the drape.

It is unknown to you, that country

where each day I go down deep

to nourish secret syllables...

and every love is a shield against sadness

a silent stair in the gloom

where you station me

to break my bread

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Quasimodo’s poetry is the challenge it offers in translation. This is where the relevance of his poetry to us becomes necessarily pressing. Indeed, reading Quasimodo’s entices us to revisit Allan Natachee’s musings of the 1940s up to the 1970s. There is so much leeway given for the enthusiast to dub in as much imagery as possible in order to come up with a comparative reflection on the works of these two poets, despite thematic variations.

Our own Allan Natachee’s poetry is full of chant, and with it comes colour, brightness of light and ingenuity in traditional choreography. Quasimodo’s appears rich in tapestry of vocab, even if the language is Italian. But the challenge in both poets is how we improvise their work in order to bring out the beauty of their poetry in our lives and in our own languages.

Na ala la omaia

La aveve la veavea?

Na alala omoaia

La aveto la veavea?

Aia nauna

Onino ma e atoapia!

Aia nauna

Vavato ma e atoapia!

(For a translation of this chant and lamentation by Natachee visit the UPNG bookshop today!) Of course, we do not need thick volumes of appropriate dictionaries to get into the mind of both poets. Modern tech allows easier access to Quasimodo’s work, but to Natachee’s a visit to UPNG’s bookshop and library or literature department would do nicely. Either way we are doing ourselves great service in creativity. Both these poets worked at about the same time in history so they are contemporaneous in that sense. For a PNG literature student this would help in comparative studies, to know what two poets of different cultural settings have thought and have written at a particular time in history.

There are no large scale wars noted in Natachee’s poetry, but the amount of warrior activity is enormous. With Quasimodo the presence of war is overbearing, even though we feel more of its inferred effects on the individual than its stark resemblances through description. Descriptions of war in Natachee are sometimes epic and Spartan whereas in Quasimodo these are eschewed as they probably remind one of too much human suffering.

But both poets strike us as fascinating, colorful and graciously honest in representing human experiences. We search the two, that we do, and we find their poetry, true as ever.

Aia!

He walks on the road!

Aia!

In war decoration!

Chants Natachee to which complements Quasimodo:

Return, serene Tindari

stir me, sweet friend

to raise myself to the sky from the rock

so that I might shape fear, for those who do not know

what deep wind has searched me

The opening citation for this article comes from the University of Queensland Press’s publication of Michael Dransfield’s poetry (1973). Allan Natachee’s poetry from Papua Pocket Poets (1968). Excerpted translations of Quasimodo’s Wind at Tindari from PoemHunter.com and Agrigentum Road tr Prof Michael Campo, Trinity College-Hartford CT.