 Good afternoon everyone. This panel. My name is Ranka Prymurats. I teach English at the University of Southampton here in the UK. It's a huge privilege to be invited to chat with you this panel. The world of African poetry really we could say. As I've been listening to this conference here today, that in my own discipline, which is the academic study of literature, y rhai a'r newydd yw'r newid yw y bwysig ar y ffordd ac mae'r pwysig ar gyfer y Llywodraeth Llywodraeth. Mae'r rhain yn olygu yn ystod i hynny i'r gweld. Mae yna y byddwn i'r cerddiant o'r llyfr y Llywodraeth Afrofiadol, o'r cymdeithasol, mae'n rhaid i'r gweld. Mae'n fwyaf am rhaid i'r word postcolonial, ac mae'n gweinio'r word yn fwyaf i'r hyn, ond mae gennym ni bobl gael i gael i'r llwyddiad, y llwyddiad gael, y llwyddiad economi, y llwyddiad cyfnod. A'r ddechrau yng Nghymru ar Markerarai 1962, oherwydd y logiad yma, yw'r bryd yma'r ffwrdd yma. Mae yw'r bryd yma'r bwrdd yn y ffrifoedd Afri ac yn ymgyrch ar y bwrdd. So, they are way ahead of their time in ways that they couldn't have been aware of when they were meeting and discussing what it means to be an African writer and to be an African writer in the world. So, it's a great pleasure to welcome practitioners and translators here with me this evening of African poetry in the world, however you understand African poetry and the world. We have heard earlier today that unfortunately the Somali poet Veid Sameh couldn't make it today because he couldn't get a visa, but we have Dr Martin Owen here with us on the panel who will say a little bit more about his poetry. I'm going to read any of it in the original and you will read the Galileo, the poem Catastrophe, that the poet himself was originally meant to have read. And then we have Erika Jarnes of the Poetry Translation Centre who read it in translation. I have got that right. After them, we will have Ida Hajiwayanes who will read a poem by Alamin Mazrui Codnikuse in Swahili, who hope I'm pronouncing all these words approximately okay. Ida is an expert in Swahili language and literature. Delightfully, she has translated Alice in Wonderland into Swahili. I'd love to ask you about that if we have time about the problems and challenges and the enjoyment of doing that. And finally, last but very much not least, we have on my left Professor Atukwe Okay who is truly a man of an African man of the world. His life's journey has taken him from all the way from Moscow to Ghana to the UK to America. He has performed his poetry as his bio tells us that we've been given with some of the leading poets of the world. He's a member of the Royal Society of Arts and the president of the Pan-African Writers Association. He has the power as the acronym has it, and he will read the poet's poem The Bond Oath of Ubuntu in English to close this panel. We will go in the order that is advertised in the programme. Right. Good evening everyone and hello again. I'm going to start off just with some words of introduction and I'm actually going to take a few steps back. Wambui asked us to remember people who are important in our lives and one very, very important person came to mind when I was sitting down there in addition to Hussain Tanzania who I did mention there. But I thought I would just leave it and actually mention him here now because there are a couple of very important connections. And that man is Mohamed Hashidama Gharia. I don't know if anyone's heard of Gharia. He's one of the most important poets in Somali of the 20th century. He was also the man who first worked out how the metrical system of the poetry works and he was a teacher. And he was also a mentor to Hassan Dair Hedr-Smith Al-Waid Sameh, the poet who we're going to read today and he was a mentor to me personally. A lot of my research I'm fascinated by the meter of Somali poetry and how poetry is crafted generally. And I was saying before how I've learnt everything in a sense from people. I've learnt more from him than any other single person, probably more than from him than many other people combined. He was an absolutely wonderful man and he was a great teacher. And he was one of the first teachers of Somali literature. Amwd University, after that was first set up in 1991, or they didn't start teaching until later, and in Hargeisi University. Hassan Dair Hedr-Smith Al-Waid Sameh, the poet who we're going to read the poem of today, was taught by Gharia. And he's now taken over teaching literature in Hargeisi University. Now it's wonderfully called the Garia Institute for Somali Language and Literature Studies. Which another friend of mine, Abdur Rahman Fargh Guri Barwako, has set up there. And it was literally on this stage in 2006 that Gharia first read his poems in English, in Somali. And we read translations through the Poetry Translation Centre. I don't know if anyone here was there that evening, it wouldn't take it with me. Do you remember that? He was only short. And there was another Somali man who was literally one of the tallest men in the world at the Abyssat. He's seven foot tall, and they were both on stage. And Gharia was a wonderful performer. So I just wanted to, I mean thank you Wambui for, in a sense, introducing that to us. But I wanted to just say a few more words about Gharia and the importance of him to me personally. And also to word Sameh, and indeed others. So Hassan Dair Hedr-Smith Al-Waid Sameh, he's at the moment, he's in Al-Sarawah. He lives in Hargeisa, Somali, and he had to go to Addis to try and get a visa. The British Embassy refused him a visa, along with some other Somali artists who were meant to come for the Somali Week Festival here in London. But he's here with us in spirit. And I've been reading this poem and others on his behalf. He's perfectly happy for me to do that. And I've been in regular contact with him, phoning up and saying, it all went fine. And he's seen it on YouTube or Facebook and all this social media things. And he was very pleased with the event we had on Monday down in East London. So now this poem is called Galilio. It's translated as Catastrophe. But the word has much more sort of a sense of, in Somali in Murugw. It's a sort of feeling. But it was felt that the Catastrophe was a better sort of title in the English. And started working on this. This is one of his major poems. And it has to do with migration. So it's the, in the poem, what he does is addresses the sea. Because as we all know, many people are dying in the Mediterranean. And so he addresses the sea as this villain in this, the story of people migrating. But the sea then turns back and says, well, hang on. Just look to yourselves. Am I to blame? And you'll hear it in the translation, which Eric is going to read. But it's this sort of dialogue between the sea and the poet. And then the poet then turns to the people and speaks to the people directly. The translation process has first started working on this sort of some time ago. And started doing a bit of translation on it. And I just should mention some people who helped me with that. There was Sir Eid Jamah Hussein who, it must have been about three years ago. Now he's actually sort of first, was it four? Good grief. Four years ago, he's sort of first helped me to understand some bits and pieces. And also where to summer himself, the poet working with him in Hargeisa. I was also Skyping on the same Mohammed Ahmad, who's a runner in Canada. He's the sort of Mo Farah of Canada. But he's interested in Sir Mali poetry. Like Mo Farah is. And we were sort of discussing this poem. And he'd actually done his own translation. And we discussed things in relation to it. So I think that's all I'm going to do is means of introduction. I'm now going to read the poetry in Sir Mali on behalf of Words Summit. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Eric is going to say a few words about the Poetry Translation Centre. And because the other person involved in the translation was Daljeet Nagra. And some people will have heard of him as a poet in Britain. So I wrote the translation and worked with him. And we made the translation that was then printed finally in the Poetry Translation Centre poster. Thanks, Martin. I just wanted to say a few words of introduction. So we didn't interrupt the poem in between the Sir Mali and the English. Good evening. My name is Erica Yanus. I'm the Managing Director of the Poetry Translation Centre. Which is a charity based here in London. But it was actually born here at SOAS in 2004, I think. And it came out of a series of translation workshops that the English poet Sarah Maguire put together with members of various faculties. I imagine that time of being a kind of exciting period where people would come together with their different languages and collaboratively make new translations of contemporary poets who were really important poets but not very well or often translated into English. So making new work available but having a wonderful time at the same time. The translation workshops were all about collaboration and everything that the Poetry Translation Centre has done in the last 12 years has been using that approach to make translations. Martin mentioned that there were many, many people involved with the translation of Galileo which we're about to read. The English poet Dalgit Nagra who was the sort of poet part of that collaboration has Bengali heritage and he said that reading the poem which is about migration brought to him a lot of memories and echoes from his own family's migration. So there are stories that we share across cultures. Respect and curiosity and consent are really at the heart of this whole endeavour. We really believe that poetry is a meeting place and that translation in turn is the lifeblood of poetry. It's a really great honour to be here at the conference. Thank you very much for some very stimulating talks. If you would like to hear a little bit more about the Poetry Translation Centre and about this poster of Galileo Catastrophe by Wetsame the Poetry Translation Centre has a website. It's very easy to find online and I'll be around afterwards to talk a little bit more about our work as well. So I think we're now going to hear the Somali original of Galileo and then I will read the translation by Dalgit Nagra and Martin Owen. So Galileo, mae hasen dal hyn, esmae i'r Wetsame, o hwyr. If cae gogosh i suhawltu, o gog gallwm nhw'r bawais yw mae oge'r talud i wgwstu, mae oge'r gwrigau ffwreis o Galileo i adon mwg ddenbeisau. Naf tanahwng gwrag at gara, acwyddo ma' acwgwra, haddana gollwpti o lwrkerau, gyffciw'u eibtio hankerau, ogw'w gara siw uchol yn. Wyd canag am ysgimau isio, garsian a li am y bachio, isiag i wedi'i'r meddahol, gyffnabag gafl chi'n mawr o, wahan hwbw'r geri cwde. Tanio anodd o gwrs, elamant o gael ei, wrw'r gerio i gwych o yma, gyda ffwy alch yn barysan, digtydw'r mahig iddontu. Yn tan tafeg anlawa'i, ma' hanwr gwrs lago hei, barbartu i aga bwlo shei, cwg angrwch i adwg bael ei, mae'r cang o dybwtod ar hwad shei, gwnad i'w ael gyda'u, mi'n gwy'r siarad o gwych o mei. Badgawli o gyfnca hwbta, mi'n gwydd i agwhad shei, gartteidio mi'n belyb. Haddad ma' has teidio gwr, baddia hei, cagad goban weid ei, unad bermag ei dadeidad sydd o gasha'r garmaha. Alleyla hei wargwmwdei, gasha'n cwgwlei'i gana, garkad o haswg i gnane, elahna'r rhaig o gei, a dda'r garmahob a heiga, hawen chi o garedd ei dda, cwgas i'r amelgoeddonna. Gwdd o galabta abadzu, byw hw gwr o gwrw cwgawd shei, gawannwch o melgarona, lulgedig o galab arrawo. Intai gwrd ei ggwlei sei, hirchi o dobteidio garedd ei wahitiri, gwrw gago, gafio wae i gwrdd dda fo, magau o gwrdd obtaid i sartu, awetid o adgen ei, so mi'n galab serei, balkadso. Adog ei gag gwlit o, haddw sahancag o gabso, haddw samirkag o gwrw, gan ei adcon agabnob o, cwstw o gwrdd gweil am eisa, garedd hi'r ala casahdo, mi'n geredd o'r shin cyda hwrtedd geredd o gwrdd gwein i'n. Habla hagwdd ei eitahrib ei, hirgat am ei ael ei ei, geredd ei osgadanaf wai ei, marki gael bach i'n wai ei, siarid cwmiw gaseint ei. Intu sahrw hwgdon shei, haliau i'l agwrdd geredd ei ffeini, intai hapsigalw gwrdd gwein ei, gaseint ymu wedi gwrreisah, inti gwrdd ei tisgaredd ei, rafdi sihad gwrdd ei, lasi gwrdd hwgwsiei, dwgagwm hwgwsiei. Marki hwrig o gyddo mi, marki gwrdd leinid barbarthw, calwm cwmiw gael ei li o el madae i'l gabach casiei. Ti'w haibahag gwrsod am ei dkenu gan angylwb ei, miad gan anwedd ei, cadso. Fa'i gwrd a tahrieb gwrdd gweisdw, gwmad ddiogheru pholhwn, hwyn jy'n cawer caw gwrsd ei, silyn caeni cwg gaf wrg ei eigh. Waha'n yn ballag y gwntae, m'i ei danyn, cababag agarbon, gwrdd a'i o gwrdd ei, gwrdd ei, so galedw arab ei. Marki gwrdd o gyddo i'w jwgledw hiws angylig o caint, mi angarasbarthw li gynnig dysad ar gybl ar y cwggi. Llywodraeth, halki gael myw ddwgaglau, gylgelin gawsahwng gaisa, mi angar asiadwch i gain yn un arwab ar y cygwrtho. Adogw'r y gag i'b si, haddad gabancina weidw, adogabag gabawiala, haddad i'l ar y gyddontho, wedi cael genis isa tae, haddad geirid a lai gyfto, haddw malkagwio, i'n tu adnwg y cygigai, cwlai wal galab sy' gai, ma haddgo'r asiadwch atos un. Garwag sy'n ei, inant ar ar ei, gyddon halkir i balkadwch. Sereddadw'u meigwt ddene, barbartw'n meigwt ddene, badwain isgwm agorene, hylbangw ben cadw'r llib te, hal mwgar anai at un le, haf mwg iddyn addswgeis ei, halkadw'r gyllid megein'n, hai ankiogedig aga gwbab anawwch as ehdain, ogalabnol te bachw. Gwgw'l canaftaw cw ogan, lalang canisi gormaia, hancael agawad y gwmeist ei, bwg gwna i'r i magadid, halkw admiw gwgwri, rajad ag gibl ba cais aran, rwntan awal aga gyddon sy'i, gabnat a heibas gweis ei, gwfa alagw farwre, cael swn i'r agabag gweis ei. Gwfbata heit gulabwra, gwfbata hei gwri aglela, gwfbata hei gara hanta, cwgachw ba hwys chena, gan cael cwmerdera arw, a gwntadw'n am agawna, maga gechyn a'i ahagw datgadwgaf, datgadw'n agwna cwma geryfyn. Dal cael gan cwma gweisid, gallwedd i ywrob cwma i erin, gyri gwna cwma ba hwna, gwbbata hei mwg yn teidda, adeg y geig ag gwwag an, gyngar gara ffarae caf hwg teit. Cw'eg gabbar gael hwratada, u ffyrso fel gwnia haga, gyda asiad yn a bldeho, dal an ba cwg gyddaman, gyda'r rarad a hanta cifau, gyrad cwg aga u heala. Gwbia cwg gaf warrexan, hwrtan i'r edygu feynin, hel ba gwt caig asaaran, cawe gosw'r a'ch achi. Wad ma hathyn ti. That's on which life lies is hard. Beware, each day we stumble. The one who's unaware doesn't know what door a decision will open, nor the anguish which can follow. Hunger leads a person by the chin, then grubby greed rides it. So again, beware, good sense is harnessed to blame, to guilt and shame and all their rot. The spear of death doesn't miss its target, or linger for the blink of an eye. No shield repels it, no one outlasts their life, so I am certain of one thing, death. From crawling baby to bearded man, bad news disturbed me, loaded with disaster. I felt for the strong ones lost. I groaned with grief for the young, those who had no milk. I sickened for them and wept. Inflamed by the scab of resentment, I chased the scourge with blood on its hands. Was I deranged by the memories? I stood on the coast and threatened, accused the booming ocean. See, you didn't prevent the slaughter of the weak. It's criminal the way you treated the people shielded by law. By God you've sunk low. The reparation you owe is clear. Admit it, don't stay silent. God will send you to the fires of hell. It's you who tore at my people, the fine women and men injured in a desolate place. Be drained each day, be empty. May you dry up, drop by drop, become a drought ridden open desert that in the evening the nomads will walk over. I had spoken. The sea roared and rumbled. It rolled its waves and churned its foam. Them said, your poem is a travesty. I don't deserve the guilt you hurl, the curse you cast. Is this my due? Just hold on. Your leaders are lacking. Your country grows weak. Your patience is lost, your smiles fade. Your understanding sleeps that would have tackled the despair that seeps inside you and steers the journey to the hour of your death. A wave crept up towards the girls as they were trafficked in darkness. It tore them apart. They had no tree to cling to and predators reveled when no friend was there to save them. All those the Sahara cut off, good men proclaimed as heroes. How many were left wretched in jail? How many virtuous women failed to reach their potential? Vultures cored over the carrion of each corpse. Wild beasts clawed the offspring given you by God. When the boat was overturned, the young were scattered along the shore. Did the fish in anguish not weep tears of festering anger? Are you unaware of your dead amassed from coast to coast? Just look. The slaughtering migration, the massacre and ugly death, the mothers draped in morning cloth for a blunder which comes around again. What binds you to it all? When the busted calls out from the bush to warn of the heavy spring showers, the gales and afternoon downpours, are you not grown up enough to know to tighten the roof mat on the frame of your hut? Doesn't common sense tell you to leave ad dawn the place where the jaws of your cattle and camels have nothing to chew, where ticks and carnivores threaten? If you've sold your goods and your house, if all your children are gone, if you stagger at the brink after hearing terrible news and offer your final shilling to death who you make your neighbour, if all your wealth has bought only that which humans despise, why lament the fate of loved ones? It's what you deserve. It had spoken and I replied, See, I hear you. I admit I've gone too far. Accept my apology. To the people I say, prosperity should not have banished. The young should not have perished, not thrown themselves on the ocean. Duty didn't burn in the spirit of him you handed it to. He had no plan for the future, didn't uphold the justice you were expecting. He slept. He didn't speak out each day as he should to inspire the camel trek to the destination you gathered for. Menace surrounds you, your children die, all their dreams are crushed. Colonial powers wrote in books that you wouldn't reach the place to which humanity aspires. A skin now covers hope. Truth has been cut away and you're told you're worthless. All this overwhelms you and splits apart your sinking confidence. You are people who can build a home. You are people in your own right. Leave behind the false hunger and look to your success. You're not any less by even a spear tip than your peers elsewhere. Your intellect is strong. Your future is bright. Your people need you. Your country has not cut you off. Western Europe hasn't called you. The Greeks don't need you. Where is your self-respect? Your place is here. Life got out of hand but look to what's ahead of you. Take in what's by your side. Turn around and see the children clumped together in the cold sleeping by the walls. Only your effort can help them. A shattered world surrounds you that no one has yet made whole. The responsibility rests on you. More pressing than cut and run. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, so this will be quite short. You'll be happy to hear. I'm reading a poem called Nygwse by Professor Alamin Mazrui. Alamin Mazrui was born in 1948 in Lamo, an island of the Kenyan coast. He was born into the very famous Mazrui family clan that some of you probably know. In the 1980s he was detained as were a number of other intellectuals who were regarded as critical about the government of Daniel Arab Moy of Kenya. So after his release in 1984 he went into exile in the US. In 1988 he published his very first and only poem collection which is called Cembe Chamoyo. That is a grain of the heart. This is one of the poems in there. It's called Nygwse. I'll read it in Swahili and then in English because it's very short. It will take five minutes too. Nygwse, everybody has a copy somewhere so you could follow me if you want to. Nygwse, taratigw, pole pole, lachini, quayachini. Nygwse tena, unidiwze tena, unifunze tena, maysha iaolivio, maysha iaonjafio. Nygwse tena, unidiwze tena, unifunze tena, maysha iaolivio, maysha iaonjafio, ladaillachio iolivio, nipohapa, nimekukabili, nygwse tena taffadhali, nygwse, nygwse. The English is, when I am released, I'll ask anyone who is close to me or this can be who is a loved one to touch me delicately, sensitively, but truly. Touch me again, make me know again how life is, how life tastes, what life tastes like. I'm right here in front of you. Touch me again, please. Touch me, touch me. Thank you. When we talk of the Macariary conference on African literature, we are talking about beginnings and so I've decided to perform this poem which is also about beginnings. In fact, President Clinton visited Ghana. Who remembers the year in which he did that? 1980 something? Do you remember? Okay. I can't remember the particular year, but we attended a conference on African literature. African literature writers and publishers in Arusha and our hotel was in the safari area. In the morning we saw the animals, the elephants, the monkeys and I suddenly recollected that the first footprint of man on earth was in that part of Africa that inspired this poem. And on my way out of the place, it first went by a bus perhaps to catch the flight in Nairobi. I started the poem on the bus and by the time I got to Ghana I finished the piece. It is called the Born Earth of Ubuntu. Ubuntu we all know is a South African, Southern African concept which says, I am because you are. There is a term here which is the Battle of Adua, the Ethiopian army over 100 years ago defeated the Italian army. O Lord my God, when I am awesome wonder, consider all the wealth I have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, they pass throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my God, oh how to die. And sings my soul, my Savior, go to die. The number you are calling is not in service at this time. Don't you give me the jazz? I know there are people at the other end. Don't ask my dreams to convey contraband cargos into the Sahara of some unlisted Mongolia. Oh, I can clearly hear my very beginnings humming like a Papua New Guinea peacock on heat in the archipelagos of the ages. I must excavate in me the embargoed plateau zones of a vision-friendly utopia, the legend of the Battle of Adua, the song, the totem and the asigai, within the silently saving digitized intestines of prehistoric Tanzania. My soul's cosmic umbilical cord, like a blanket clutch stone-edge refugee, anticipating a passport and a visa, awaits the connection with Ethiopia, with Alexandria. I must link myself with another. Within the oasis compound of the awakened, the Lallibela Temple stands centering over the shimmering threshold of the 21st century. The millennium new calculates that in Buktuya, Tutankhamenic, spiritostratospheric physics of a majestic entry. Upon the table mountain inscribed on the other side of the Rosetta Stone, the classified spiritual inventory of man, woman and humanity. Out of the moon-massaging mouth of the monumental midnight men's song of Marrakesh. And the long, long Shokoto Sudanese haunts of Ser Jena Trouff, rivaling the eternity teasing Nefertiti Neck, from within the savanna seducing until saluting vocal chords of the Kalahari xylophone, from within the Kolanot-Kostodian kalabash of the chorus of Mount Kilimanjaro, from inside the forest diviner death of the binting of bonnet drums of Manche Takitayua and Shakadazulu, and the belafong of the Futajalon and River Kongu. The earth of Yana Rangsuwa pours out. The wind of the stone citadel of the great Zimbabwe pours out. The fire of Manobotapa pours out. Through the goblin pharaonic, phontofromic welling waters of the Vitura Falls, Abusimbel and Nacosumbu. The transcendental Abysinia tanzania Cedilchuros anthem. I testify to the coconut sap. I notify of the landmine and the gut. I am the soul. I am the goal. I am the footprint of man. I am the heart. I am the hope. I am the ancestral horoscope. I am the path finder's map. I am the black print of the air. I am the soul print of the sun. I am the blueprint of the gene. I am the ombel caracot to mankind. I am the compass finger to the millennium. I am the footprint of the world. I am the light. I am the future. I am that I am. I am Ubuntu. I am Ubuntu. I am Africa. We shall be on that bus. These were wonderful. I know you'll agree with me. I didn't know there were so many ways, specific and different ways for poetry to be wonderful. I'm sure you'll have questions. We have about ten minutes. If nobody, if you need some time, do we have one? While you are thinking about them, I wonder if I can invite all of our speakers and translators to comment briefly on the form of their novels, on the formal properties of what they've just read. It's all very different. They have clearly very different organising principles. So if you could say a few words about that and maybe the difficulties of translating that form into the language. Right. I won't give a whole lecture on this. Actually, if you want to... No, I was joking. I was only joking. Okay. There's two things to listen out for in the Somali. I should maybe mention this. First of all, it's the meter, so it's metrical. The meter that he uses in this poem is one called Barad-e. So it goes la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Do you get variations on that theme? No, but it's alliterative. You would have heard maybe something that sounds like rhyme. I didn't hear rhyme, but I was wondering... What you get is a lot of syntactic parallelism, which then leads to what sounds like rhyme. But it's not rhyme as such. But what you do get is the alliteration. Every word in this poem, if you heard it, began with the word with G. Sorry, every line. It has a word beginning in G. So if ke go go si su haute o go galab no ba washi o ma oge galag i ugusti, ma oge guregei furais o galiliad o mwg dandesa. And it runs through the whole thing. Will the alliteration spot up a grammar of Somali? The alliteration is part of... I mean all Somali poetry is alliterative. So this poem in this meter, there's quite a number of different meters. According to the meter you have one or two words beginning in the same sound. But it's the sound that's carried through the whole poem. That gap gap gap gap gap gap through every single line. And it has to be a noun or a verb or an adjective or an adverb. You can't use pronouns or grammatical particles. You can't just... People's ears are attuned to when people are struggling with that. And they may be put a word in just for the sake of the alliteration. And you can't repeat words. So it's to translate it, isn't it? So I'm not speaking as a translator. But this PTC has published quite a lot of contemporary Somali poetry and translation. And as Martin says, every poem illiterates in a letter. But when you replicate that in English, unless you're very skilled, it can end up sounding forced because we're not used to seeing so much illiteration in English. Although older English poem has that feature. One of the poets who we've translated is called Ashalul Mohamed Yousaf, who writes in Somali but has lived in the UK for 20 years. So she's a UK poet really. She's been translated by a poet called Claire Pollard, who has very successfully put the illiteration into her translations. If you ever get a chance to read some of hers, they're on our website, etc. You'll see every line with the same letter and it works. It's a sign of real skill when you can make that sound echo through the poem without it seeming like you've just sort of shoehorned it in. But I guess that's the same in Somali. The really skilled poets can do it, making it seem effortless. I think the thing is what you have to sort of bear in mind is that to Somali ears, it's natural. So this is the thing, it's not natural to our English ears when you hear it. And if there was one line missing it, that would stand out hugely. And no, you just won't get a poem like this without missing the illiteration. A poet simply wouldn't do it. Ida, I saw your, we all saw yours printed. My colleague Alina can tell you more about Swahili poetry more than I can. The poem I chose is a free verse. It's a modern poem, it's called Shairi Lakissasa. But Swahili has a long history of very round and rhythmic poetry. Worker poetry. And in the 70s we had a lot of arguments, we talked about this on Monday at this talk, about how the poem I just read would have seemed as not real poetry because it does not have the rhythms and the meters and everything else. But personally I prefer these modern poems because I find that they carry the meaning more as opposed to the traditional poems. So yeah, that's just Shairi Lakissasa that you have with you there. Prof, I didn't expect you to sing. It was wonderful. Thank you very much. Tell us how you came to write it the way you did it and how you performed it. Yeah, you've got time. Well, as I was saying, I was inspired by the environment. And the fact that the first footprint of man was in Africa and in that area. So as soon as we got onto the bus, I started scribbling. And I think going over my papers, I would discover that that which I scribbled first became the last part. I scribbled it, it came and so even it was an envelope, you know, just scribbled. And we continued and I continued scribbling all sort of papers. Then when we got to when I got to a crowd, I finalised that piece. And I asked for the time when to know when the Clinton visited Ghana, because I don't remember the date, but it was in that year that we heard that he was coming to visit Ghana to Africa. And Ghana was going to be the first stop and that was going to make a statement to Africa. Now, while in the midst of the creation, I decided that that piece was going to be Africa's message to the world. So that's how I went about the poem confirming and affirming the primacy of the African footprint in the scheme of things. And it came out beautifully. There was a conference in Stockholm, World Culture Conference. And that was the first place where I gave the first world reading of this poem. Then, 1992 or 2003, Nadim Godiman invited me to South Africa to attend her birthday celebration. And previously in 1991, Lester Mandela had come to Ghana to say thank you. He said thank you to all through the world. And at a forum called Mandela Forum at the International Conference Centre, the people outside were more than the people in the conference hall. And it was Broker's life. After Mandela spoke, I was the only other person who spoke by performing a poem called Mandela Despier, which I wrote on the night that he was released from prison. So when I visited Nadim Godiman, immediately I got there around 5 p.m. She said, well, we've been invited to State House. So I was to escort her because her husband was very adverselate. So a car came for us and we went to pick up the Mandela's lawyer who handled the Rivona trial. So we took him and we went to State House. It was a dinner in honour of the Chilean president. Now, around our table, we have also divided the Deputy Foreign Minister of South Africa. When he discovered that I was a poet, he said, what? A poet like you, you are here and you are keeping quiet. Protocol. After the next speaker, he goes, what was I to do? I don't know my poems of Barat. Luckily, on that occasion, I took a poem and put it in my pocket because I'd been a Barat before. It was this poem that I took. So I probably got up and went to the podium. And I told Mr Mandela that I'd been sent from Ghana to come and take him back. And that in honour of him, I'm going to have the opportunity to perform for him a second time. The first was when he came to Ghana, if you remember. This time, I'm giving him a different poem. The Bondos of Ubuntu after all, Ubuntu comes from Southern Africa. And so I performed this poem and it was quite interesting. And when I finished, I set about going to my table. Not knowing I should have gone behind on to the days to shake their hands. So I shook their hands a long way in front of the table. And the next day was the birthday of Mandela Swaya. So Madam and I, we went to the party. We went to George Bezos' home. And as we were driving, she said, the president is coming. So he let me put my car aside. I thought it was the president of the law firm of George Bezos. No, no, it was Mandela. So we got aside. He passed and then we also came in and we all sat together. We sat at the same table with Mandela. So this is an interesting history to this poem which really has been... I'm happy that I've been blessed to produce this poem for Africa. We are really privileged to have had you. I hope somebody's recorded. Our time is up. These poets and translators are hopefully going to stay around for a little longer if you want to get their autograph or talk to them some more. But now I believe we have to make space for the closing of the conference. Thank you very much.