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    Visions in My Mind’S Eye: A Collection of Poems
    Visions in My Mind’S Eye: A Collection of Poems
    Visions in My Mind’S Eye: A Collection of Poems
    Ebook241 pages1 hour

    Visions in My Mind’S Eye: A Collection of Poems

    By Irmagard Anchang Langmia

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    About this ebook

    Visions in My Minds Eye presents a collection of poems in which poet Irmagard Anchang Langmia conjures the lives of othersacademic, religious, secular, or otherwisefrom her imaginative mind. This collection represents a multitude of cultural experiences rooted in everyday, routine life at home in her native Cameroon and abroad.

    The poems in the first part of Visions in My Minds Eye are all academic in nature, each dedicated to students she has taught at Bowie State University. These poems illuminate varying themes and subjects ranging from the notion of knowledge to responsibility. In the second part of the collection, the poems are religious. While a number of them are written in memory of Irmagards late father Dr. Ngongwikuo, she also explores visual images of her life in Cameroon in a startling, meditative, and dreamlike state of mind. In the third part of the collection, she has written love poems drawn mostly from her imaginary world of romantic bliss. The fourth section of the collection includes secular poems covering a variety of themes based on the daily rhythm of our lives. The fifth and final part of Visions in My Minds Eye takes a critical look at basic human nature, morality, and the human condition during times of political upheaval.

    Visions in My Minds Eye portrays vivid images that capture the imagination and unravel an intriguing world that leaves the mind soul-searching for answers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateOct 17, 2011
    ISBN9781462036417
    Visions in My Mind’S Eye: A Collection of Poems
    Author

    Irmagard Anchang Langmia

    Irmagard Anchang Langmia has taught English in high schools in Cameroon and North America. She has also served as an English lecturer at Bowie State University in Maryland. Born in Njinikom, in the North West region of Cameroon, she is the daughter of the renowned author Dr. Joseph Anchang Ngongwikuo (Taboo Love). Married and the mother to two sons, Irmagard resides with her family in Jessup, Maryland.

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      Book preview

      Visions in My Mind’S Eye - Irmagard Anchang Langmia

      Visions in My Mind's Eye

      a collection of poems

      IRMAGARD ANCHANG LANGMIA

      iUniverse, Inc.

      Bloomington

      Visions in My Mind’s Eye

      A Collection of Poems

      Copyright © 2011 by Irmagard Anchang Langmia

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-3640-0 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-3641-7 (e)

      ISBN: 978-1-4620-3642-4 (dj)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2011912577

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 10/31/2011

      Contents

      Introduction

      The Gift of Thanks

      Knowledge

      The Beauty of My Soul

      The Pride of a Profession

      Academics

      Challenges

      Bridges

      Ambition

      Adjustments

      Academic Obsession

      Summertime

      Predictions

      Bridging the Golden Gate

      The Reader

      The Power of Words

      My Triple Combination

      My Gut Instinct

      Memories of My Summer

      Gambling with Opportunities

      Red Marks on Their Papers

      Fragmented Syntax

      Shed off the Cloak

      Part II: Religious: A Vision of Light

      Live the Experience

      Last Moments

      A Dad’s Legacy

      Sunrise at My Window

      The Rustling Tide

      Rhapsodies in the Wind

      In Memory of My Venezuelan Colleague

      Illusions

      Scrolls

      The Rising Tide of Judgment Day

      Eastertide

      The Funeral Cortege

      Where to Look for Me

      Life’s Hassles

      Tribulations of True Love

      Dances at the Church

      From the Heart of an Anxious Woman

      Lack of Foresight

      My Heritage

      Sunset in the Blues

      The Insane Beggar

      Lunatic at Dawn

      Stranger at My Door

      Engulfed by Flames

      My Secret Garden

      Brandon’s Evening Prayer with Mommy

      Brandon’s Prayer to the Soldiers at Virginia’s Arlington Memorial

      Part III: Love and Relationships: A True Vision of Life

      Gypsy Horse Rider

      Goddess in the Mirror

      Midnight Silhouette

      Drumbeats of Medieval Lifestyle

      Millennium Fireworks

      Passionate Encounter

      Tender Is the Moon

      Stranger at the Bar

      To Mommy with Love

      Memories

      The Rose (To My LESAN Sisters)

      Proud to be a LESAN

      Through My Eyes (Stories from the Heart)

      In Those Days

      Tribute to My Mother

      The Storm in Her Eyes

      Part IV: Secular: A Vision of Routine Life

      I Dream

      Challenges

      Episodes of Loneliness

      The Incomplete of Me

      The Lost Pearl

      Thinking Inside the Box

      Fanatic Fallacies

      Incidents of Color

      The Voice of Mirrors

      The Beauty of Color

      Dramatizing the Art

      Today in New York City

      I Boarded a Train

      I Remember

      Do Not Let Go of Your Dreams

      Ignorance

      Thursday Morning

      Barging In

      Chaotic Voices on the Dining Table

      The Flickering Candlelight

      Perennial Woes at Crossroads

      Lucky

      My Mother’s Kitchen

      The Folly of My Desire

      Beyond my Eyes

      My African Heritage

      Part V: Politics and Relationships: A Vision of Reality that Questions Morality

      Strikes

      Katanga

      Campaign Ads

      In the Eyes of the Storm

      The Gallows

      Transgressions of a Corrupt Guard

      Die Like a Soldier

      Prayer at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

      A Soldier in Agony

      The Course of History

      Abikjan

      Exit Point

      A Vision in the Stormy Sea

      Works Cited

      Works Consulted

      Endnotes

      Acknowledgments

      With special thanks to my mother,

      Juliana Anchang, and in memory of

      my dad, Dr. Joseph Anchang Ngongwikuo.

      To my darling husband Dr. Kehbuma Langmia,

      thanks for all the comments and advice.

      To all my sisters and brothers namely - Jane, Concilia,

      Charles, Innocent, Bernard, Pauly, and Jude, thanks for everything.

      To my sons Brandon and Gabriel-Phil, thanks for

      the fun we had while writing some of these poems.

      It was awesome.

      No matter how vivid a memory you have of honeysuckle crowding a creek bed, it remains locked away from a reader until you deliver it into language. You have to use words to make a reader smell the honeysuckle or hear the cellophane crinkle on a package of crackers.

      (Wallace and Boisseau 259)

      Introduction

      Dear Reader,

      When I was a young child growing up in the small village of Bambui in the northwest region of Cameroon, my window to the world was very limited. My father was a student in the University of Edinburgh in Great Britain and later, at the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon, while my mother was a teacher at St Peter’s, the Catholic elementary school in Bambui. I was raised with a very practical and unsophisticated lifestyle in a Catholic mission in my early years. Every morning, I usually stepped outside to the veranda of our red brick house to stare in awe and consternation at Mother Nature and listen amusingly yet curiously to the rhythmic quacks of parrots, eagles, swallows, hawks, egrets, and ostriches that perched on the eucalyptus treetops lining the edged lawns of the St. Peter’s football field across the street.

      Little did I know then that beyond Bambui, there was another world out there that comprised continents, nations, and people of all colors who travelled around the globe. However, I was only five years old then, gradually growing into a young child. But as I matured and blossomed into a young woman, as I traversed the Atlantic Ocean to explore the universe that lay beyond the territory of my birth, I reflected on my ignorance and the sophisticated nature of a world, which was totally foreign to me then.

      Poetry, like the flow of a stream that gradually soaks into the ground to restart its generational process, has gradually seeped into my brain. I now find myself waking up nights with a sudden and forceful urgency of thought. When that happens, I scramble from my bed and pounce on my keyboard before these thoughts escape my mind. Honestly, in my college years, I was never enthusiastic about poetry. During my Yaoundé University years, the only time I found poetry exciting was when my English professor, the late Dr. Siga Asanga, demystified Okot P’Bitek’s Song of Lawino, a poem in which Lawino chastised her husband, Ocol, for abandoning traditional values and pursuing European ones. What was so obvious in my negative attitude about poetry was the fear of misinterpreting the poet’s line of thought.

      Yet, the question that arises is the following: Should a poem written by a poet be tied to a single interpretation, or should it be subject to multiple interpretations by the reader? Which interpretation is recommended for the student in the classroom who studies poetry? Whether the reader agrees or disagrees on this subject of single or multiple interpretations of a poem, the truth is that all depends on the curriculum demands within the system in which the teacher finds him or herself. It is for this reason that I now leave the reader with this ideological food for thought, highlighting my views on the diverse interpretations that poems are often subject to.

      Poetic Style

      The difference in poetic style

      lies in the mindset of varieties

      pen handled by assorted geniuses

      of varying cultures.

      Clustered in closets of multiple ideologies,

      identical to individual talent, it is an exciting

      breakthrough for poetic gluttons who cannot

      but help intellectually—

      consume, absorb,

      pause, then,

      meditate.

      So, read through the lines,

      for the stanzas’ highs and lows iterate my poetic

      choices, be they conventional or otherwise;

      because,

      a fresh stream of phobic ideologies

      stringed in lettered words, then partitioned

      and bottled into logically pieced stanzas,

      determines a fundamental creativity,

      in a writer’s poetic style,

      which often

      is subject to multiple interpretations,

      as the reader parades the palisades of yearning

      minds, anxious to critically dissect the literal

      anatomy of words that typically characterize

      the emboldened letters beyond.

      The poems in this book represent multiple experiences rooted in everyday routine life abroad and in my native land, Cameroon.

      Read and enjoy!

      Part I: Learning and Responsibility: Finding the Inspiration to Excel

      "Excellence is a fine motive for achievement,

      if we stir our dreams in the right direction."

      The Gift of Thanks

      Thanks,

      For the gift of knowledge

      that makes us intelligent;

      For the gift of wisdom,

      that renders good judgment in the

      mind of the wise;

      For the gift of humility,

      that humbles one’s self;

      For the gift of selflessness,

      that simplifies our being;

      For the gift of honesty,

      that enriches our spirit;

      For the gift of sharing,

      that gives freely to others;

      And for the goodness of our hearts,

      that exudes kindness in others in

      desperate moments of need.

      In everything we say thank, you

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