Artikel
Welcome to Zimbabwean poetry - January 2005
18 januari 2006
Hove's poetry reflects the progression of his ideas and experiences from the hot anger and challenge to colonial repression, through the scrupulous observation of the effects of liberation war on rural communities, to disillusion and bitterness over the failure of the new government’s promises. His writing is infused with his belief in the people for whom he bears witness, and informed by the excoriating pain of injustice.
The next issue of the Zimbabwean magazine will appear on April 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.
Our new poet of the quarter, poet, novelist and social commentator Chenjerai Hove, now lives in exile in Europe. His critical social and political commentary in the weekly newspaper The Standard (2000-2002) gave rise to threats that he was forced to take seriously. For a creative writer who cares deeply about his country’s welfare, leaving is a moment of profound loss. And yet for a writer for whom ideals are central, such loss is intensified by what he believes is a betrayal of governance in an independent Zimbabwe. Hove's poetry reflects the progression of his ideas and experiences from the hot anger and challenge to colonial repression, through the scrupulous observation of the effects of liberation war on rural communities, to disillusion and bitterness over the failure of the new government’s promises. His writing is infused with his belief in the people for whom he bears witness, and informed by the excoriating pain of injustice.
The next issue of the Zimbabwean magazine will appear on April 1.
© Irene Staunton
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