Naked woman, black woman
Clothed with your colour which is life,
with your form which is beauty!
In your shadow I have grown up; the
gentleness of your hands was laid over my eyes.
And now, high up on the sun-baked
pass, at the heart of summer, at the heart of noon,
I come upon you, my Promised Land,
And your beauty strikes me to the heart
like the flash of an eagle.
Naked woman, dark woman
Firm-fleshed ripe fruit, sombre raptures
of black wine, mouth making lyrical my mouth
Savannah stretching to clear horizons,
savannah shuddering beneath the East Wind's
eager caresses
Carved tom-tom, taut tom-tom, muttering
under the Conqueror's fingers
Your solemn contralto voice is the
spiritual song of the Beloved.
Naked woman, dark woman
Oil that no breath ruffles, calm oil on the
athlete's flanks, on the flanks of the Princes of Mali
Gazelle limbed in Paradise, pearls are stars on the
night of your skin
Delights of the mind, the glinting of red
gold against your watered skin
Under the shadow of your hair, my care
is lightened by the neighbouring suns of your eyes.
Naked woman, black woman,
I sing your beauty that passes, the form
that I fix in the Eternal,
Before jealous fate turn you to ashes to
feed the roots of life.
Léopold Sédar Senghor
1906—2001
Senegalese poet, writer, and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor was born near Dakar in the town of Joal to a Fulbe mother and a Serer trader father. He was educated at the École Nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer in Paris, where he became friends with Aimé Césaire and future French president George Pompidou. After earning his French citizenship, Senghor taught in Tours and Paris. He joined the French army during World War II and spent 18 months in a German prison camp. After serving successive terms representing Senegal in the French National Assembly, Senghor returned to his native land, where he led his nation's independence movement in 1960. He eventually became Senegal's first democratically elected president, a post which he held for the next twenty years.
Senghor's political and literary careers were inextricably linked. Residing part-time in France, he wrote poems of resistance in French, which engaged his Catholic spirituality even as they celebrated his Senegalese heritage. Senghor is the author of several collections of poetry, including Chants d'ombre (1945), Nocturnes (1961), and The Collected Poetry (1991, translated by Melvin Dixon). He also edited an anthology of work by African poets in French colonies, Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poésie Négre et Malagache (1945, with an introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre). His nonfiction work includes numerous volumes on politics, philosophy, sociology, and linguistics.
Senghor co-founded, with Aimé Césaire, the Négritude movement, which promotes distinctly African cultural values and aesthetics, in opposition to the influence of French colonialism and European exploitation. He also co-founded the journal Presence Africaine with Alione Diop. Senghor, the first African invited to join the Académie Française, was awarded honorary doctorates from 37 universities, in addition to many other literary honors.
Senghor died at his home in France at the age of 95.
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