That a poem so brief can contain a world may seem incredible to some, but here, Mauritanian poet Abdoul Ali War has accomplished just that. In this poem of fourteen short lines, elegantly translated by Patrick Williamson, Ali War offers a sparing vision of the interplay between river and sea, the water of life and the vast, world-separating lacuna from which all life once came, and to which all will, eventually, return. In a brilliant turn, Ali War inverts the traditional movement between the two forces, positing “The river is a branch / The sea is a tree,” calling our attention to the cyclical processes of the natural world, in which all that we the living depend on emerges from a greater, primordial body. Implicit in the brief, plainspoken lines and lack of punctuation is a deep appreciation for the delicacy of the relationship between these forces; we disregard the river and the sea at our peril. Read on!
The river goes to the sea
The sea has its own
space
It has its own
depth
The sea is first
The sea is mother
The river goes to the sea
The river plunges in
The ripples are not waves at all
The river is a branch
The sea is a tree
The river is borne
The sea is the bearer
Translated from the French by Patrick Williamson
Born in 1951 in Bababé, Mauritania, Abdoul Ali War lives in France, where he studied cinema. After a brief stint at Radio Afrique, he was a contributor to “Panorama” at France Culture. He has mainly worked with Med Hondo as an assistant film director. He also co-adapted, with him, Abdoulaye Mamani’s novel Sarraouina (Éditions L’Harmattan, 1980). His third poetry collection is J’ai égaré mon nom (Le Manteau et la Lyre, Obsidiane, 2020), after the publication of Demain l’Afrique and poems in the anthology Poésie d’Afrique francophone. He has also written the play Génial Général Président, and the novel Le cri du muet (éditions Archipels Littéraires, 2000). Three of his poems, translated by Patrick Williamson, appeared in Turn your back on the night: ten poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (The Antonym, 2023).
Patrick Williamson is an English poet and translator. His recent poetry collections are Presence/Presenza Here and Now and Take a Deep Look (Cyberwit.net, 2023 & 2022), Traversi (English-Italian, Samuele Editore, 2018), and Tiens ta langue / Hold your tongue (Harmattan, 2014)). He is the editor and translator of The Parley Tree: Poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (Arc Publications, 2012). Notable authors he has translated include Tahar Bekri, Gilles Cyr, Guido Cupani and Erri de Luca. He is a founding member of the transnational literary agency Linguafranca and the European board of The Antonym.