Article
Welcome to Zimbabwean poetry - July 2005
January 18, 2006
Nor can we now take up the question of whether as Ignatius Mabasa says, a writer can develop his or her skills, if they don’t read.
However, as the editor of Poetry International Zimbabwe, I have often wondered how we would give voice to the many young poets who are so eager to be heard. To have, for example, a competition which results in thousands of entries, would not be an event we could manage. Thus, it was with pleasure that I came across the Crossing Borders initiative, co-ordinated in Zimbabwe, by the British Council. The programme, as Mabasa explains in his introductory article, had been established to nurture young writers from Africa. This tutelage has helped them to appreciate poetry, not as a rhetorical device or as rhyming bombast but as a finely honed art which relies on fresh ideas and acute perception.
We thus have pleasure in introducing ten young poets from this programme who reflect their own reality, conscious that their lives are being affected by the larger social and political issues that are affecting our society. The poems are quiet, understated, finely perceived, personal and reflective. We are very pleased that we are able to publish these poems on the web, as we could never do in hard copy.
In the first issue of this magazine, I said that Zimbabwe was a nation of poets. Indeed, as a publisher, I regularly meet young poets, who are so eager that they can appear almost desperate to have their work published. They make the assumption that once the book exists it will be read, and they will be heard. Ironically, however, the general book market in Zimbabwe is very small. A poetry book by a well know prize-winning poet may sell less than a few hundred copies a year.
“How can people afford books?” someone might respond, “they have no money.” A fair point, especially in today’s Zimbabwe, with approximately seventy per cent unemployment and an inflation rate over of a hundred per cent. Nonetheless, the question of whether a country’s writers need, desire or should have access to the world finest thinkers through their books, be they available for purchase or in libraries, is a large and important issue in any society, but not one I shall address here.Nor can we now take up the question of whether as Ignatius Mabasa says, a writer can develop his or her skills, if they don’t read.
However, as the editor of Poetry International Zimbabwe, I have often wondered how we would give voice to the many young poets who are so eager to be heard. To have, for example, a competition which results in thousands of entries, would not be an event we could manage. Thus, it was with pleasure that I came across the Crossing Borders initiative, co-ordinated in Zimbabwe, by the British Council. The programme, as Mabasa explains in his introductory article, had been established to nurture young writers from Africa. This tutelage has helped them to appreciate poetry, not as a rhetorical device or as rhyming bombast but as a finely honed art which relies on fresh ideas and acute perception.
We thus have pleasure in introducing ten young poets from this programme who reflect their own reality, conscious that their lives are being affected by the larger social and political issues that are affecting our society. The poems are quiet, understated, finely perceived, personal and reflective. We are very pleased that we are able to publish these poems on the web, as we could never do in hard copy.
© Irene Staunton
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