{"id":103271,"date":"2024-08-19T08:33:47","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T06:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/%d1%81%d0%be-%d0%bf%d1%80%d0%b8%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b0%d0%bd-%d0%bf%d0%be%d0%b3%d0%bb%d0%b5%d0%b4\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T11:11:14","slug":"with-eyes-fixed-on-africa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/with-eyes-fixed-on-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"with eyes fixed on Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2>\n\t\t\t<em>with eyes fixed on Africa<\/>\t<\/em><\/h2>\n\tThese heavy stones the ocean has tossed onto the shore,<br \/>\ntossed here onto this island from where<br \/>\nhandsome young men and women, their eyes fixed in a farewell gaze<br \/>\non their own native Africa,<br \/>\nwere once sent in galleys as living black slaves to foreign continents.<br \/>\nThe ocean became both their home and their merciless fate,<br \/>\nas faintly in the distance an unknown land began to appear,<br \/>\na land that promised them days blacker than their skin.<br \/>\nThe unknown land would remain to them foreign and unknown,<br \/>\nwhile longing for their native wilds calcified their souls,<br \/>\nwhich tore themselves from their bodies. The dried-up bodies<br \/>\nlay on the foreign land like empty fish skeletons,<br \/>\nwhile the calcified souls, sharp and needle-like, rolled down to the ocean.<br \/>\nThe merciless ocean was waiting for them like a most anxious parent;<br \/>\nit embraced them in its wave-arms and carried them back,<br \/>\nback to Gor\u00e9e, from where, as handsome young men and women,<br \/>\nthey had once been sent in galleys<br \/>\nto unknown and distant foreign continents,<br \/>\nand now they are stones tossed onto the shore,<br \/>\nwith eyes fixed eternally on their Africa;<br \/>\nnow they are a House of Slaves<br \/>\nin silent and intimate contact with their descendants,<br \/>\nto converse with them for a time and then rest.\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/display-case\/\">Aco \u0160opov<\/a>, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-light-of-the-slaves\/\">The Light of the Slaves<\/a>&#8221; in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-song-of-the-black-woman-content\/\"><i>The Song of the Black Woman<\/i><\/a>, 1976<br \/>\nTranslated from the Macedonian by Christina E. Kramer and Rawley Grau,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/reading-room\/poetry-shelf\/the-long-coming-of-the-fire-content\/\"><em>The Long Coming of the Fire<\/em><\/a>, Dallas, Deep Vellum, 2023.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>with eyes fixed on Africa These heavy stones the ocean has tossed onto the shore, tossed here onto this island from where handsome young men and women, their eyes fixed in a farewell gaze on their own native Africa, were once sent in galleys as living black slaves to foreign continents. The ocean became both&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":98423,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-103271","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103271"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103633,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/103271\/revisions\/103633"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acosopov.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}