Poetry
Ny Hirako
Not translated into English
Dox · 1941
Synopsis
The poet's first collection, in Malagasy, made up of short, lilting pieces on metres of four or eight syllables. One hears the song of the birds in “Fihiram-borona”, the passing of the seasons, spring, summer and then autumn, in “Raha mandalo”, the wild fig tree in “Aviavy”, and, in “Papangohazo”, the thought that returns to the play of a child of long ago. A poetry of the near and the tiny, attentive to the detail of life, in which melancholy already pierces through feeling.
Context
The collection was printed in 1941 at Fianarantsoa, while its author, a farmer at Mandoto, was publishing his poems in the journals of the capital, some ten years after his first verses and in the wake of the Mitady ny very movement, which wanted to restore to Malagasy culture its own values. It opens a body of work of nine collections, many prose works and sixteen plays, including only one volume of verse in French. A Malagasy study notes the regularity of his metres and the rarity of his poetic licences.
Who it is for
In Malagasy, never translated into French. The poems are brief and songlike, and many are recited from memory in the country.
Prizes and reception
Its poems have appeared for half a century on the curricula of Malagasy schools, from primary school to university.