A Chopi song from southern Mozambique. It may be sung at weddings but has also a more general popularity. The argument of the song is that the bride must learn to acknowledge her love for Nyagumbe.
BRIDE: Nyagumbe!
Nyagumbe!
Why do you refuse?
I Heard a Bell
A ChiLomwe girls’ song from Malawi, popular as a pounding song (sung by women using mortar and pestle to pound grain to flour). The bell is a bicycle bell.
I heard a bell ngili-ngili at the corner:
I thought it was my boyfriend, the son of Chipo,
Balwo
Ten separate love songs from Somalia. Balwo means ‘sorrow’, and the subject of this type of song is invariably unhappy love which is described briefly in striking and unusual images. These songs are immensely popular in Somalia and are regarded by some as blasphemous.
Woman, lovely as lightning at dawn,
Speak to me once even.
Mwananazi
A Swahili poem, well known along the East Coast of Africa. The poem is a husband’s praise of his wife Mwananazi.
Give me a chair that I may sit down
And serenade my Mwananazi,
Serenade
A Swahili love-song from the East African coast, and probably the best known and most widely admired of all Swahili poems in translation. Like Mwananazi, it is associated with Liyongo, the Swahili national hero.
O lady, be calm and cry not but sing to your suitors.
Sing to those who guide you and to the discerning passers-by
Introduction to Relationships
The poems in this section are chosen for their range of feeling about human relationships. They are about courtship, marriage, parenthood and bereavement. They deal with different kinds of love and different kinds of grief.
