"Prayer to the Masks"

Senegal was still a French colony when Leopold Senghor was born. Educated on two continents, he was a teacher and poet, before becoming the country's first freely elected president. This poem was likely written during World War II while he was in a German prison camp: it has dark lines about guns and death, but it emphasizes the hopeful image of Africans dancing to revive the world.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 3's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Things Fall Apart, Prayer to the Masks, The Second Coming, Things Fall Apart (excerpts), An African Voice