Louis Marie Pouka's manuscripts were handed over to Minister Tutu Muna on Tuesday in Yaounde.

The Minister of Arts and Culture (MINAC), Ama Tutu Muna has invited writers to submit copies of their works to the National Library to make them more accessible for posterity. She was speaking at the Yaounde Conference Centre on Tuesday July 10 while receiving the manuscripts of Louis Marie Pouka, Cameroon's pioneer poet who died in September 1991 after producing lots of good, but sometimes controversial poetry.

"These are not all of the manuscripts as we keep discovering more of what he left behind," said Marie Louise Secke Pouka, the poet's daughter and also Secretary General in the Ministry of Small and Medium-size Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicraft (MINPMEESA). She was speaking on behalf of her family which decided to organise the ceremony to pay homage to the departed poet and his works presented in a collection entitled "Louis Marie Pouka's Poetic Works," published in 2010 by the Cameroon News and Publishing Corporation (SOPECAM) with funding from MINAC.

According to the moderator, Marcelin Mvounda Etoa, the ceremony was an attempt to represent a controversial and ignored Cameroonian poet's works. "He pioneered Cameroonian poetry in the French language and was first laureate of the Literary Awards organised in 1935 by The Gazette newspaper in Cameroon," he said.

Louis Marie Pouka's poetic works is a 300-page collection of more than 200 poems written over a period of 60 years. Spread out in 13 texts, the poems handle themes such as love, fatherland and freedom. In his review, the President of the "Round of Poets," Jean Claude Awono, said the poet's style was anti-conformist from an aesthetic point of view and portrays him as a nationalist and not an assimilationist.

According to Prof. Mbala Ze, it was understandable that the poet sparked controversy. "Inability to understand a poet is at the heart of poetry. Poetry is not communicative," he explained, before expressing regret that today's poetry lacks improvisation. On his part, Prof. Joseph Mboui praised Pouka's mastery of the French language.

Louis Marie Pouka was born in 1910 in Khan in the Sanaga Maritime Division, Littoral Region. After attending seminaries in Yaounde and Edea, he started publishing poems in 1929. His law studies in Bordeaux, France enabled him to secure a job back in Cameroon as court registrar. He ended his career as Vice-President of the Yaounde Court of Appeal.