A crumbling house of stone, a tormented soul

2 maart 2010 Sasa’s poems are brutal and honest. There are no sacred cows and every effort is made to lay bare Zimbabwe’s paralysis. With acute insight, the poet describes Zimbabwe’s fall from grace. The reader is left to feel the devastation through her vivid descriptions, “I walk through the ruins/of what once was a mighty fortress/ of stone.” (‘Myths and Legends’).

Given the derivation of Zimbabwe from ‘Dzimbabwe’, meaning, literally, “houses of stone”, it is clear that the poet is mourning the destruction of her country. The tragedy is both its downfall and the promise that it once held for its people. But the sense of failure and disillusionment is not confined to a national level; it is reflected deeply at a personal and family level, and the national crisis manifests in unfulfilled personal hope, dream and memory. Pain and confusion settle on the individual’s mind as hope is lost and the perception of crisis becomes a foreboding. In ‘Midlife Crisis’, Sasa expresses this sense of unrest, where time dissolves into the past, and the mind grapples with uncertainty and despair. Zimbabwe’s implosion at the national level has led to soul-searching at the individual level. Faced with a crisis of hopelessness, the mind seeks (temporary?) refuge in drinking (‘A Full Glass’).

There is literally nowhere to hide. One would have thought that developing passionate relationships would provide an escape route. However, this results in the destruction of both bodies (‘Pyro’s Ode to Prufrock’). Passion consumes the passionate. There seems to be no hope in the celebrated peace and security of the home. Mother is dead drunk and father is absent (‘Lullaby’). This captures the depth of the crisis. Home is no longer idealised. The drunk mother and absent father confirm the state of misery. Instead of the lullaby gently sending the child to sleep, it has the opposite effect:

my mother sings me to sleep and i wake
clinging to the wet wall of her drunken tears.

(‘Lullaby’)

Looking back on the days of youth, the poet recalls the disempowering labels that were applied. This is a reminder that negative words used on children are permanently imprinted in their consciousness. The poet does not forget being charged with having “a head full of peanut butter,” and of being “a dog without a tail” (‘My Youth’). By capturing the condemnation in ‘raw Shona’, Sasa accentuates its negative effects. The gendered nature of the verbal abuse becomes clear in the following:

no respect
don’t look me 
in the eye
kneel
cover your bare
legs
rise early
from bed

As a girl, the poet comes face to face with patriarchy and its oppression of women and girls. Disturbingly, the scarred youth graduates into an adult in a Zimbabwe that has fallen apart. Marriage is not a viable option (‘Reflections’). Where many celebrate their mothers and fathers for their guidance in matters of the heart, the character in the poem describes her mother as ‘nagging’, her father as “the bobble head idiot.” Central to Sasa’s deeply distressing poetry is the recollection of trouble during youth and turmoil now in adulthood.

Zimbabwe is dead. The poet expresses this with the words, ‘nematambudziko’ (“my condolences”) in, ‘House of Broken Stones’. The words are uttered facing down and only on the occasion of a death. Zimbabwe has died, and with it, people’s hopes and dreams. Its spirit has been invalidated. Utilising the poetic style of lamentation, Sasa contrasts the now shattered landscape with the pristine beauty of the country. Where Zimbabwe used to be the region’s breadbasket, now “the basket is empty, the land derelict, its people shackled” (‘House of Broken Stones’). She mourns the loss of prosperity and flight of citizens to other countries. She puts it across clearly in the following stanza:

I walk through the ruins
of what once was a mighty fortress
of stone.
The wind echoes emptiness
and the merry conversations of a prosperous people
are now
silence. 

(‘House of Broken Stones’)

Notions of destruction are expressed through the idea of “walking through ruins” and the contrast between “merry conversations” and “now silence.” Within the poet’s cultural context, silence is associated with death. The destructive impact of the social, economic and political crisis is confirmed by the transformation of culture. Where previously death yielded wailing and tears, it now calls for “mute apathy.” (‘Myths and Legends’) Sasa regrets the physical and moral decay of her surroundings. The “sunshine city” has lost its appeal and its residents no longer stroll but ‘roam’.

For Sasa, the personal and national commotion can be explained by the failings of one person (and his circle). In a daring act, she identifies him as, ‘Mr President’. Principally, she attributes the national disaster to the loss of vision that comes with being established in age. In ‘I am Cannibal’ she offers a recipe for the successful dissolution of the “one man.” She is unforgiving in her characterisation:

The god has grown old and his wilted
wits tyrannise us all. 

(‘Myths and Legends’)

She charges that “mr president” does not operate in harmony with his ’subjects’ and “nobody is tuned to his frequency”, (‘Mr President’). For her, salvation will only come with a change of guard and the “rising of a new sun”, (‘Gabriel Goodnight’).

Sasa’s poetry is fascinating, unsettling and revolutionary. She does not have any sacred cows and lets her pen follow her mind with abandon and yet with an acute sense of style. Prying into the deeply personal, as well as launching biting attacks on politicians, she is effective and persuasive. However, she runs the risk of demonising those she regards as wrong, and therefore prevents any possibility of redemption. While she can be obscure, her poetry is refreshing. A “new sun” is rising on the Zimbabwean literary landscape; her “heart is a fortress of stone” (“Myths and Legends”) and many people are tuned to her frequency (cf “Mr President). Anna Chitando is chairperson of the Department of Languages and Media Studies at Zimbabwe Open University and a lecturer in this department.