Rising from the Depths of Despair - A Review of Enoh Meyomesse’s Prison Poetry

Reviewed by Dibussi Tande

Enoh Meyomesse. (November 2012). Poème Carcérale… Poésie du pénitencier de Kondengui. Yaounde : Les editions du Kamerun. 56 pages. [e-book version]

"Prison is a place, but it is also an idea, an idea that has engaged writers and thinkers ... because it offers a way of expressing the helplessness we all feel at some point in our lives... The idea of prison gives us a setting in which to imagine our relationship to the world when we are feeling frustrated, limited, hedged in, stymied. We can then go on to identify the forces that have landed us in this situation... and those that can release us." The Kingis Quair and Other Prison Poems

Nearly one year after he was imprisoned in the Kondengui prison in Yaounde on charges of “aggravated theft”, Cameroonian writer and political activist Enoh Meyomesse has just published a poetry collection detailing his arrest and life behind bars. In this moving collection, Meyomesse bares it all, vividly describing his moments of hope and despair, his anger and anguish at the fate that has befallen him.

In “Arrestation” (The Arrest, p.23) Meyomesse’s takes the reader back to his fateful return trip from Indonesia and his traumatic arrest at Nsimalen airport in Yaounde:

I was coming back to you
my heart filled with joy
Oh! Yaounde
[..]
I was coming back to you
my heart bursting with joy
Oh! Nsimalen

Just like other times
when from my airplane window
I could see the muddy paths
of the suburbs of Ongola
[..]
But this time
I was coming back to you
To have my heart broken straight away

they had my picture
they had my name
they had my life
they had my soul

THEY CARRIED MY DEATH

In “la pancarte” (The Sign, p. 9)) Meyomesse relives the humiliation of being paraded before the media in the town of Bertoua like a common criminal, a sign around his neck accusing him of aggravated theft:

It hung around my neck
the cursed sign
that weighed heavily
the TV Cameras
the onlookers
and people the world over
read
my name on the sign
stunned
[...]
and beneath my name
they wrote an abomination
Oh! Supreme humiliation

It was in Bertoua that Meyomesse was kept in solitary confinement for a month. This was the lowest point in his year-long incarceration; a period of deep depression during which he flirted with suicide (Suicide, p. 12):

Suicide
you paid me a visit
[...]
Suicide
I discovered your kingdom
[...]
Oh!
they are afraid of you
their souls tremble at the mention of your name
but me
my heart instead wants to embrace you
my heart want to hold you tight in its arms
my heart wants to snuggle up against you
because I have become the dregs of the earth

In “Je suis retourné dans mon pays” (I went back to my country) Meyomesse believes he has paid too much of a the price for leaving behind a fulfilling life abroad to return and serve his country:

I returned to my country
my mind filled with
a thousand thoughts of liberty
I returned to you
Oh! Kamerun
burning with desire
to see you tall and
stronger than everyone else

I ignored thousands of warnings
and returned to your shores
[...]
I returned to your side
Oh! My beloved country

And

HERE I AM

when will you stop crushing
your most devoted children
without any qualms?

In “Ils m’ont abandonné” (They have abandoned me, p. 31), Meyomesse explores his deep sense of loss after his friends and family turned their backs on him.

They have abandoned me
All of them
They have abandoned me

If my father was still here
If my mother was still here
If you were still here
beloved mum and dad
I would have seen you

But they are not my father
But they are not my mother
[...]
They have abandoned me
All of them
They have abandoned me

Fortunately for Meyomesse, virtual strangers stepped out of the shadows to take up his cause; footsoldiers who made his name to “ring out like a giant drum", putting his jailers on the defensive ("Je vous remercie", p. 40):

I thank you
you who never tired
to expose my ordeal without a name
to the entire world

and they panicked
and they lashed out
and they proclaimed
their innocence
NO!

I did them no wrong
NOTHING AT ALL

Enoh Meyomesse also ruminates about the place of the writer in Cameroon – scorned, despised, forced to toe the line and punished whenever he crosses the line (l’ecrivain, p. 9):

Writer
elsewhere you are celebrated
your chest donned with rows of medals
from your heroic battles
against darkness
[..]
BUT here
you pen is abominable
it is hated, it is loathed
Like the bird of death

It would have been unlike Meyomesse to write about life in Kondengui without mentioning the prisoners who live in special VIP quarters, away from the general prison population. In “Le balcon de son Excellence” (His Excellency’s Balcony, p. 44) he focuses his acerbic pen on former Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni:

He is there
every morning
standing
tirelessly standing

observing others
from high above
as in the past

He is there
every morning…
high up
above everyone else
in his VIP cell
[...]
he has not understood that the earth has changed
he has not understood that there's been an earthquake
he has not understood that the mountains have overturned
[...]
they giggle at the sight of him
perched on his balcony
like a desperate orphan crow
no longer able to croak or to flap its wings
they burst out laughing
at the sight of his downcast look
and his jaws
hollowed by boundless sadness

Poème Carcérale… might be a short poetry collection, but it is a reverting and sometime heart-wrenching journey into the poet’s traumatic world. In these poems, Meyomesse displays remarkable resilience of spirit and optimism in the face the unexpected and unjust turn in his life. In spite of his moments of despair and doubts, the poet is certain of one thing; whatever happens, he will eventually walk out of prison stanidng tall and towering above his oppressors. As he promises in "Quand je sortirai d’ici" (When I will leave this place, p. 33):

When I leave this place
I will be a different person

I will not hold it against the earth
I will not hold it against the seas
I will not hold it against the forest
I will not hold it against you

I will build mounds of joy in my heart
I will build mounds of elation in my heart
I will build mounds of celebration in my heart
Because
I would have defeated you
[...]
I would have defeated all of you

Click to visit the Free Enoh Meyomesse Facebook page.

Click here for Enoh Meyomesse's narrative on life in Kondengui prison.