Article
Welcome to Zimbabwean poetry - October 2004
January 18, 2006
Chirikure is not, however, an uncritical nationalist and it is this which makes his work so distinctive and challenging. He is prepared to analyse and express his disenchantment with a regime that promised so much, and has delivered so little. Recent political divisions in Zimbabwe, moreover, make the need for the integrity of critics, passionate nationalists, more important than ever, as the rhetoric of the moment challenges dissenting voices with the claim, that if you are not with us, you are with them, and thus a pariah. Many feel threatened and dare not speak out.
Chirikure himself says: "When I was a baby, my mother strapped me on her back and sang soft lullabies until I fell asleep. It is from my mother, from her loving music, that I got the rhythm of song and beauty of words. If only my sleep would be as peaceful as those years."
The next issue of the Zimbabwean magazine will appear on January 1.
Zimbabwe is a country of poets. Zimbabweans write poetry, speak it and sing it in Shona, Ndebele, Tonga, Shangaan and other minority languages; we have poetry in English, praise, performance, oratorical, and declamatory poetry. Perhaps as many as one in six people writes poetry or takes pleasure from trying to do so.
Chirikure Chirikure is undoubtedly one of Zimbabwe’s leading performance poets. An adolescent during the civil war in the 1970s, he grew up in the ferment of national belief and assertion that accompanied the overthrow of colonialism. His decision to write and perform in Shona is in itself a statement regarding the richness and historicity of the language and the culture over which it presides.Chirikure is not, however, an uncritical nationalist and it is this which makes his work so distinctive and challenging. He is prepared to analyse and express his disenchantment with a regime that promised so much, and has delivered so little. Recent political divisions in Zimbabwe, moreover, make the need for the integrity of critics, passionate nationalists, more important than ever, as the rhetoric of the moment challenges dissenting voices with the claim, that if you are not with us, you are with them, and thus a pariah. Many feel threatened and dare not speak out.
Chirikure himself says: "When I was a baby, my mother strapped me on her back and sang soft lullabies until I fell asleep. It is from my mother, from her loving music, that I got the rhythm of song and beauty of words. If only my sleep would be as peaceful as those years."
The next issue of the Zimbabwean magazine will appear on January 1.
© Irene Staunton
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