The audacious young poets of Angola and Mozambique

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Periodical article

Title:	The audacious young poets of Angola and Mozambique
Author:	Hamilton, Russell G.
Year:	1995
Periodical:	Research in African Literatures
Volume:	26
Issue:	1
Pages:	85-96
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Angola Mozambique
Subjects:	literature Portuguese language poetry
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820090
Abstract:	This essay deals with the audacious young poets of Angola and Mozambique who have recently begun to liberate the form and content of lusophone African literature. Building on a strong poetic legacy bequeathed to them by their predecessors, they have nevertheless embraced experimentalist paths that the author characterizes as a 'new tropicality'. Their poetry often defies the rules of traditional African orature and conventional Portuguese-language verse, delighting in 'Africanness', cosmopolitanism, and sensuality - often a vigorous female sensuality expressed by innovative women poets. These poets, male and female, share many of the dilemmas of identity, language, alienation, and authenticity that engaged their precursors, but their creative approach is freer, more exuberant. It is also more elusive, less accessible to a broad audience. This trend contrasts with the earlier Angolan and Mozambican traditions of communal-didactic, anticolonial poetry, but by liberating language, the new poets are contributing to the creation of an important, world-class African art. Bibliogr., notes.