Amistad! Amistad! Amistad! Poem by Moses Kainwo
Amistad! Amistad! Amistad!
Punches thrown for man and country
Punches gotten for man and woman
What they did we did in Amistad
Yes… punches… for women and children
Take it so… for man and country
What a way for fettered friendships
Given or thrown for man and country
Taken or laid by hands in Amistad
Redundant aches for man and country
You and I… amid star judges forever
Sails mounted on the Atlantic Ocean
Are a famished embodiment
Of love and hate in Amistad
Souls neither blue nor white
Are sailing... sailing… sailing...
Yet they come from careless neglect
Sons and daughters of Chiefs and Queens
With no names from more names in Amistad
So I salute with enthusiasm
My siblings who sail on the seas
Guilty punches thrown by Malice
Sengbe Pieh is a better name
And a Monarch gave birth to Amistad
Sengbe whose blood knows how to spell NO
With echoes on land and sea
And what he did I truly did
I got back my soul from punches
Amistad Friendship Amistad
Blasts many horns for many ears
That the children may hear and live
But from what you say you have not heard
From what you do you have not heard
From what you see there is no Amistad
So Amistad horns will keep blasting
For those of us that have not heard
Amistad Friendship Amistad Friendship Amistad Friendship Amistad
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Delivering Poems Around The World
Poems are the property of their respective owners. All information has been reproduced here for educational and informational purposes to benefit site visitors, and is provided at no charge...
4/23/2024 10:11:32 PM # 1.0.0.1119
Your fellow countryman, Amadu Maddy, wrote and directed a play, 'The Amistad' at the University of Iowa in the 1990s. For awhile he was also a consultant to Spielberg for the movie. Your poem suggests an interesting and, decidedly different perspective than Maddy's drama. I am impressed by the persona's projection of triumph over guilt and helpless. Also, the persona speaks for (himself) and for his country, its past and its future. Who would be free and have a future must throw the punches for himself and for the rest of mankind. Friendship, at first glance, seems to mean the same as peace; but friendship goes far beyond peace to embrace a range of contradiction: a ship named Amistad (meaning Friend(Ami) ship carried 'siblings' over the seas; ' not as a gesture of friendship but as a gesture of conquest, a taking over of the captives completely: 'no names...' Essentially, the captives free themselves by going to blows with superiors and 'got back {their souls(meaning names and identity) by purposive action against their captors(or any other oppressive forces) .