Negritude

and
Leon-Gontran
Damas

Born March 28, 1912

in Cayenne, French
Guiana
from a comfortable
middle-class mulatto
family

He met Aime Cesaire and Leopold Sedar

Senghor
while studying in Paris.
In 1934 they founded
LEtudiant Noir
or The Black Student.

the

journal

It explored American-derived ideas of a

Negro renaissance.

Pigments, his first

collection of
poems, was
published in 1937.

Through his poetry,

Damas refused the
black title given by
the French and
claimed his own
identity: Ngre.

It is an attack, a
cry of pain, an
anguished
inventory of the
personal loss of
Africa, of Black
identity, of
discomfort and
revolt at the

Sleepless Night
My friends Ive waltzed
waltzed
more than any
of my ancestors
the Gauls
to such a point my blood
still beats
to the Viennese

My friends Ive waltzed

waltzed my childhood through
wandering on
some blue Danube
white Danube
red Danube
green Danube
pink Danube
red green pink or blue
whichever

My friends Ive waltzed

Madly
Waltzed
to such a point that often
I thought I had an arm around the waist
of Uncle Gobineau
or of Cousin Hitler
or of that good Aryan that gums his years
on some park bench

Nuit Blanche as a phrase

means Sleepless Night
But it literally means White
Night
The waltz is a European dance
that would have been taught to
Damas from a very early age.
It symbolizes the process of
cultural assimilation that many
colonials went through.

Sleepless Night
My friends Ive waltzed
waltzed
more than any
of my ancestors
the Gauls
to such a point my blood
still beats
to the Viennese

my ancestors /
the Gauls is an ironic
statement.
African children in the
French colonies are not
taught of their own
heritage.
Instead they are taught
European history and
culture.

My friends Ive waltzed

waltzed my childhood through
wandering on
some blue Danube
white Danube
red Danube
green Danube
pink Danube
red green pink or blue
whichever

Blue Danube refers to

the famous waltz
composed by Yohann
Strauss II
blue /Da/nube
white /Da/nube
red /Da/nube
These lines follow the
Viennese beat, which
emphasizes how much it
has been engrained into
the persona.

My friends Ive waltzed

Madly
Waltzed
to such a point that often
I thought I had an arm around the waist
of Uncle Gobineau
or of Cousin Hitler
or of that good Aryan that gums his years
on some park bench

Arthur de Gobineau wrote An Essay

on the Inequality of the Human Races
and developed the theory of the
Aryan master race.

In
a
blunt,
dry,
vivid
style,
unashamedly plain language, staccato
rhythms and acridly witty puns,
Damas short poems lay bare their his
often violent rejection of white
European
ci-vi-li-za-tion.

Damas is Negro and insists

on his Negro-ness and on his
condition as a Negro.