The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn

by Tanella Boni, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Introduction), Todd Fredson (Translator)

Tanella Boni is a major African poet, and this book, The Future Has an Appointment with the Dawn, is her first full collection to be translated into English. These poems wrestle with the ethnic violence and civil war that dominated life in West Africa’s Ivory Coast in the first decade of the new millennium. Boni maps these events onto a mythic topography where people live among their ancestors and are subject to the whims of the powerful, who are at once magical and all too petty. The elements—the sun, the wind, the water—are animated as independent forces, beyond simile or metaphor. Words, too, are elemental, and the poet is present in the landscape—“during these times / I searched for the letters / for the perfect word.” Boni affirms her desire for hope in the face of ethno‑cultural and state violence although she acknowledges that desiring to hope and hoping are not the same.
 

Genres: Poetry, African Literature, Africa

98 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's incredible how a poet (together with, as in this case, a translator) can release a flow of beautiful words which go to depths of the worst things that people do to each other and themselves. There's nothing graphic here, not much that's polemical, but Boni captures the disorienting horror of corruption and violence, and how it sweeps people along.
The poems aren't all doom-laden, and she does also reflect on hope, and the possibility of a return to simpler, kinder, community-based living built on compassion and mutual understanding, though whether it's a realistic hope or wishful thinking is something not, I think, resolved in the poems, but maybe that's more about my own disposition.
The introduction (despite being USA-centric) and brief notes help interpretation, some internet research on Côte d'Ivoire history being useful, too. 4.5 ⭐

[Libre Livre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will never be able to explain what this book meant to me. Un chef-d’oeuvre. A must read especially if you lived through these very times. Sadly, maybe you do now.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry is still fit for transmitting emotions and ideas in the contemporary society.

[Darius · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[R. Henrichs · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite the read, suggested to me by my friend Kris at Poetic Justice. This is one of those rare poetry books that I neither loved nor hated. My biggest issue with not loving it is it feels like you need to have at least a little connection with the issues that Tanella is talking about for these to have the impact that she is writing about.

However, I loved some of the lines in this book. Her wording is absolutely beautiful, and her grasp of pulling out emotions with what she says is incredible. Well worth the read.

[Tara Ballard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How do I tell you that the day / falls / in the scree of teardrop rain/ because the writ issued
/ from the peaks of power / lacks terms of reconciliation // tomorrow the future has an appointment with the dawn / and I do not know what enfant terrible / startled by the aurora’s clarity / will take the chance to throw that first stone / across the moat that circumscribes power"

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several instances of the word choice in these poems were breathtaking. What was unclear to me is where one poem started and the other ended, as short sections were divided across pages sometimes with roman numerals and sometimes not.

These poems capture the hope and beauty of Cote d’Ivoire at the same time as the absolute hellish atrocities. Worth reading.

[Cody Stetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the individual poems and the form of the book really worked. I really enjoyed reading it; however, when I got through the book I didn't quite have a satisfaction attributed with finishing a book - moreso like I just read through an extraordinary packet of poems.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful words about Africa and death and war.