ECHOES OF THE SOUTH: THE MUSICAL HERITAGE OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE IN NOÉMIA DE SOUSA’S POETRY

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing how the dialogue between Noémia de Sousa’s poems and the Harlem Renaissance music genres occurs, and its relevance to the colonial period in Mozambique. For this purpose, we shall study the poems “Deixa passar o meu povo”, “Patrão” and “A Billie Holiday, cantora”, compiled in the work Sangue Negro (SOUSA, 2016),  in the light of the works of  Bosi (1977), Gilroy (2001), Fonseca (2003) and Cabaço (2009). The study points out that the voices of the Harlem Renaissance contributed to the intensification of the ideals of fight and the appreciation of their African heritage through the following characteristics present in the author’s poems: musicality, marked by the rhymes, exclamations and variation in intonation and rhythm patterns; and intertextuality with the Afro-American music and voices, as observed in the verses devoted to citing Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, spirituals singers, who are considered allies in the fight against colonialism and in the transmission of the Negritude Movement.