I decided to be happy
to dance the rumba until beat
to take back all my names, shards of the past
to remain the child of the mine and railroad
family memory coupling with the locomotive
exile in the bud, loneliness without end
I decided to be insolent, and unseemly
to spit in the soup of those who defang life
to piss on their supposed good faith
to snicker in insolence
and repent, later, to the Elder Spirit
for how long can they really last?
already, they have made this country a grave
I decided to turn out dreams
as vast, as colorful, as high-flying
as hope
sumptuous dreams
slobbering like tropical rain
alone expectorating the curse
upsetting all in its wake
furious, eternal, worthy of the flood
though this time they won’t march into the Ark
the male and the female
the pair of all clean beasts
I decided to stay the child of Zaire
to fashion derby cars from tin cans
and kites from bags
attaching a long string
and running through the sunshine, running and running
until the kite leaped heavenward . . .
when the raffia string snapped
the zigzagging kite was lost in the sky
only regret remained with us
I decided to dream again
not of walking on the moon or
inventing an umpteenth WMD
but of opening a sort of magical bar
and there to sell not drunkenness, or binges
but hope
I decided to be the one-man band of my days
myself on drums: KENNY CLARKE
myself on trumpet: MASEKELA
myself on piano: TAPSCOTT
myself on double bass: MINGUS
myself on sax: SANDERS
in the background MAKEBA’s voice
to groove from dawn to dawn
and hum for my mother (MA’NANGA) and the stars
Independence cha-cha
Norwich, February 11, 2017
Kasala for Myself
Fiston Mwanza Mujila
translated from the French by J. Bret Maney
“Kasala for Myself” is a subdued poem—at least by the standard Mujila has set for linguistic turbulence in his other work—of existential affirmation. The speaker’s choice of happiness is made in a context of exilic longing, cultural in-betweenness, and postcolonial memory. Proceeding by a bricolage of lightly sketched souvenirs and oracular commentary, the poem ends with the speaker’s powerful intention to become a kind of eudaimonic bartender, serving up draughts of hope to an imperiled world.
As indicated by the title, the poem draws upon the generic resources of the kasala, a form of praise poetry practiced by the Luba people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Le chant kasala des Luba, Patrice Mufuta describes the kasala as “a free-verse poem made up of praise-names. It is sung or recited in an elevated tone, in public settings . . . It is intended to elicit yearning, and is sometimes performed with musical accompaniment.” Originally an oral form composed in Ciluba, the kasala was adapted for written French in the 1960s by the important Congolese poet Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji.
For Mujila, the orality of the kasala survives in the improvisatory freedom of the performer. “If I recite my poem,” he told me, “it will end up being longer because I’m going to improvise or choose variations from the main text.” This extensibility—some critics have charted instances of the kasala extending past eight hundred lines—prompts Mujila to note similarities with the blues or jazz, an artistic kinship he makes explicit in the jazz-suffused soundscape of the final stanza of “Kasala for Myself.”
As indicated by the title, the poem draws upon the generic resources of the kasala, a form of praise poetry practiced by the Luba people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Le chant kasala des Luba, Patrice Mufuta describes the kasala as “a free-verse poem made up of praise-names. It is sung or recited in an elevated tone, in public settings . . . It is intended to elicit yearning, and is sometimes performed with musical accompaniment.” Originally an oral form composed in Ciluba, the kasala was adapted for written French in the 1960s by the important Congolese poet Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji.
For Mujila, the orality of the kasala survives in the improvisatory freedom of the performer. “If I recite my poem,” he told me, “it will end up being longer because I’m going to improvise or choose variations from the main text.” This extensibility—some critics have charted instances of the kasala extending past eight hundred lines—prompts Mujila to note similarities with the blues or jazz, an artistic kinship he makes explicit in the jazz-suffused soundscape of the final stanza of “Kasala for Myself.”
Fiston Mwanza Mujila was born in 1981 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and now lives in Graz, Austria. His selected bibliography includes the Man Booker International Prize-longlisted novel Tram 83 (2014), the poetry collections Craquelures (2011), Le Fleuve dans le ventre (2013), and Soleil privé de mazout (2016), and two plays published as Et les moustiques sont des fruits à pépins; Te voir dressé sur tes deux pattes ne fait que mettre de l'huile sur le feu (2015). His writing foregrounds its debt to jazz, responds to political turbulence in his native country and its effects on everyday life, and displays an often incandescent, improvisatory verbal energy, replete with bouts of irreverent humor and surprising tonal shifts. He is the recipient of many literary prizes, including, most recently, the Peter-Rosegger-Literaturpreis (Austria, 2018).
J. Bret Maney is an assistant professor of English at The City University of New York where he teaches US literature, translation, and the digital humanities. A past recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, he translates from the French and Spanish. His translations have previously appeared in journals such as Asymptote, Exchanges, Gulf Coast, Small Axe, The Brooklyn Rail, and CENTRO Journal. His first book-length translation, of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner’s foundational Latinx novel Manhattan Tropics (1951), is forthcoming from Arte Público Press.
