In The Wretched of the Earth (1963), Frantz Fanon holds an optimistic view of the intellectual in the colony, as one who plays a key role in confronting the colonial administrators and addressing them on level intellectual turf. Long after African countries have gained independence, university campuses continue to sprout and grow on the continent. The intellectual finds their position changed. Now, intellectuals are under scrutiny more than ever, pressed to illustrate their relevance to the continent, to indicate how their expertise is not limited to the professing of theory in university corridors. The discourse has been ongoing in various disciplines. This essay examines the area of poetry, arguing that this domain illustrates the continent’s disillusionment with the place of the African intellectual in relation to their immediate world and indigenous knowledge production within it. In poetry, we find insightful critiques of as well as recommendations for the role of the African intellectual. Through an exploration of several poems that touch on the academy and the intellectual, the essay illustrates how these poems fit into the ongoing discourse about the indigenization of knowledge vis-à-vis the pedagogy imported from the West.

在地球的悲惨世界中（1963年），弗朗茨·法农（Frantz Fanon）对殖民地的知识分子持乐观态度，因为他在与殖民地行政人员面对面并在知识分子层面上与他们打交道时发挥了关键作用。在非洲国家获得独立很长时间之后，大学校园在非洲大陆上不断发展壮大。知识分子发现他们的立场改变了。现在，知识分子比以往任何时候都受到越来越多的审查，他们被迫说明他们与非洲大陆的关系，以表明他们的专业知识不仅限于大学走廊的理论专业。各种学科中的讨论一直在进行。本文考察了诗歌领域，争辩说，这个领域说明了非洲大陆对非洲知识分子的幻想破灭，而非洲知识分子在他们的近代世界和其中的本土知识生产方面则处于失望状态。在诗歌中，我们发现了对非洲知识分子作用的有见地的批评和建议。通过对涉及学院和知识分子的几首诗的探索，这篇文章说明了这些诗是如何适应正在进行的关于知识本土化的论述的相对于从西方引进的教学法。