In Cameroon's civil war, spoken-word poets speak the unspeakable

BUEA, Cameroon — A woman cried out upon seeing what looked like a corpse, a sheet-covered form lying on a stretcher. As volunteers wheeled it onto the stage, Boris Taleabong Alemnge recited a poem whose title spoke the unspoken: ''Death.''

''The day you die, people will cry,'' the 24-year-old told hundreds of audience members in an embattled part of southwest Cameroon. ''But this won't stop the clock from ticking or the flowers from blooming.''

Alemnge is among a group of artists using spoken-word poetry to denounce ongoing bloodshed in Cameroon's English-speaking regions, where separatists are fighting government forces. The supposed corpse was a stage prop, but the tears and wails that greeted it were real.

The civil war has killed an estimated 6,500 people, a majority of them civilians, and displaced nearly 1 million since 2016.

Spoken word has gained new prominence in Cameroon as poets like Alemnge, who performs under the stage name ''Penboy,'' believe their art form taps into the everyday dangers of war zones that many people avoid talking about.

''Death is inevitable, yet many people don't even want to think about it,'' he said after a performance he organized in March to launch his latest album, ''RED.''

Artists have found eager audiences who say they feel moved by the rhythms of the spoken word.

''I have watched crowds fall silent, then rise like waves, because his words have the power to heal,'' said Prosper Langmi Ngunu, who watched Penboy's performance.

Almost everyone in Anglophone areas has lost someone close to them. Mental health issues are common. So, too, is gang rape by members of the warring parties, contributing to a rise in teenage pregnancy.

''RED'' returns to the themes of Penboy's first album, ''Natives of the Universe,'' which advocates that people share common humanity and fight for reasons of vanity that don't justify the human cost.

Despite the linguistic divides deepened by the conflict, Penboy has toured six of Cameroon's eight Francophone regions to draw people's attention to atrocities committed in English-speaking regions. There, he said, his poems found empathetic audiences and even turned some listeners into advocates for peace.

International and local organizations have documented looting, killing and torture as well as mass rape and the burning of villages. The warring sides often trade blame for such abuses.

The scars of colonial rule shape discord in modern-day Cameroon along linguistic fault lines. Once a German colony, Cameroon was divided between Britain and France after World War I. They ruled it as two separate entities until the early 1960s, when Cameroon became independent and united as a single, federal, bilingual state.

The arrangement was short-lived. The following decade, Cameroon passed a referendum amending its constitution and dissolving sections guaranteeing the rights of the English-speaking minority.

The English-speaking population makes up about 20% of the country's roughly 30 million people. They feel marginalized by the Francophone majority. Tensions spiked in 2016 when the government attempted to impose French in English-speaking regions' schools and courts, igniting protests that security forces violently repressed.

The clashes prompted some English-speaking separatists to take up arms against the government. Both sides have been accused of violence against civilians.

The growing popularity of spoken-word events like Penboy's March 9 gathering reflects how people are becoming less afraid to express their outrage, said another spoken-word artist who goes by Camila.

''Since we cannot pick guns to fight, we use the power of the spoken word to send across our message. Some find peace in it, others find healing, while some get educated,'' she said.

Her performance drew inspiration from an October 2021 attack in which a soldier killed 5-year-old schoolgirl Caro Louise Ndialle after shooting at a car fleeing a checkpoint.

''How can we forget carrying the lifeless body of our baby girl in our hands with her open skull like a trophy won from a tournament?'' Camila asked the audience.

Her poems tap into memories of bodies strewn on city streets, and schools and hospitals that stop operating after government soldiers and separatist fighters burn them to the ground.

Other works lampoon what poets see as hypocrisy and nonchalance by the warring sides.

In ''Cries Of War,'' spoken-word poet and writer Sandra Nyangha tells the story of people fed up with the conflict and eager for a return to peace.

''If you can give the order for something such as war to start, then you can also give the order to end it,'' she said.

For Penboy, spoken-word gatherings are part of efforts to bring the arts to crisis-affected communities. He has also worked on initiatives like the Students In Activism Project, launched last year, to help youth build self-confidence through developing their writing and performances.

The war has robbed many of an education, he said.

''My goal here is not just to perfect their skills. It is for them to use the art forms to bring solutions to their communities,'' Penboy said. ''Artists have the responsibility to use their craft to advocate for change."

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This story has been corrected to note that the performance in the sixth paragraph happened in March, not last month.