Good Morning Sun of My Land - Griffin Poetry Prize

Good morning sun of my land

how good it feels to be alive today

so much light

so much light around me

Good morning empty exercise yard

you have become familiar to me

I cross you with a lively step

and you suit me like an elegant shoe

Good morning ponderous and philosophical oxpecker

perched up there

on the wall that hides the world from me

poking at your ribcage

with distracted little movements

Good morning sparse grass in the alley

quivering in opalescent flurries

at the wind's teasing touch

Good morning great lone palm

erect on your cross-grained trunk

blooming at your peak

like a glorious tulip

Good morning sun of my land

tide of presence abolishing exile

So much light

so much light around me

***

I have a thousand reasons to live

to vanquish day-to-day death

the joy of loving you

and walking in step with hope

***

Donald Nicholson-Smith

2017 Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist

See Poet Bio

Abdellatif Laabi

2017 Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist

See Poet Bio

Notes on the poem

“Good Morning Sun of My Land” is another inspirational selection from In Praise of Defeat, a collection of the work in French of poet, novelist, playwright, translator, and political activist Abdellatif Laâbi, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. In Praise of Defeat was shortlisted for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.

As we observed in a previous…

As we observed in a previous selection from this collection, Abdellatif Laâbi’s experience of political imprisonment and exile deeply informs and permeates his work. As the 2017 judges acknowledge, this is so well communicated in English by Laâbi’s dedicated translator Nicholson-Smith, and the exercise was clearly an epic labour of love for him.

The use of repeated words and phrases as mantras aiding in his survival appears again here, as it did in “Chronicle of the Citadel of Exile”. “Good morning” and “so much light” are deployed with determined positivity. Again, the poem is absent of punctuation, but each “Good” of “Good morning” is pointedly capitalized (as “Bonjour” is capitalized in the original text in French).

The “empty exercise yard” illustrates that he is dealing with both imprisonment and further enforced isolation, but he contends with that by anthromorphizing the things around him, including the yard itself. How fortunate that another living creature that shares this space with him is the oxpecker, a bird native to sub-Saharan Africa that is related to starlings and mynahs – talkers, even if they are “ponderous and philosophical”.

As Laâbi brings his confined space to life and sheds light on it, he also introduces traces and suggestions of colour, culminating in the comparison of the “great lone palm” to “a glorious tulip”. Tulips conjure many colours, all of them symbolizing hope and love, which segues beautifully to the quatrain concluding this selection. In this poem, Laâbi has truly generated a “tide of presence abolishing exile”.

Poem of the Week

Good Morning Sun of My Land
Donald Nicholson-Smith (translation from the French written by Abdellatif Laabi)

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