adminSome of the issues are love, human rights, women and children’s empowerment as well as peace and humanitarianism.
In this anthology Titus is influenced by Persian poets who have written about love, spirituality, humanity and nature such as Mowlana-Jalal-ed-Din Mohammad Balkhi (Rumi), Rahman Baba, Al-Afghani and RabiaBalkhi.
The Persian language’s long poetic tradition is fused with Titus’ own experiences from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Ethiopia where he has lived to explore love at the personal level, love for the spouse, the children, the family, nature and love for one’s country in the context of issues on the Diaspora and separation.
The anthology is a treatise of fragility of human love in the midst of courage, sacrifices, and pains migrants face while working far from their loved ones. Eventually, the anthology searches for genuine love, wondering whether in the ultimate homecoming the warriors at home and in the Diaspora will meet to love again or whether the love fires, arrested by distance, will have iced in the winter of absences.
The contents page, titled “Unveiling Poetry” evokes a quest for freedom of expression, for removing the mask in order to reveal who we truly are as romantic human beings. Talking to his lover, the poet yearns,
“Love is your emotional echo I receive from afar, Fertile with that energy we unleashed when our toes kissed.
“Ungentle Touch – Poems from the Fireplace of Arrested Love” consists of 11 parts: romance, making out, real sugar fantasy is love, exiles and passions, country love, salt fantasy love, woman fire, beasts of ill-gotten riches and imitation love.
The poem “Making Out” introduces the journey of falling in love:
“I brightened in my dreams;
Thinking of you in my sleep;
“I fancy you in reality every night;
“To soothe me in the lavender light.”
Real Sugar Fantasy Love is a tribute to free love unreserved and unfettered love.
“More than smooching is at the fireplace of loves,
“There is more of other hypnoses of the souls.”
In “Exiles and Passions”, the poet traverses imprisoned passions, hoping to kiss the soils of his Zimbabwe again:
“Dust in Kabul caresses Titus’ Diaspora self-exile daily.
“My teeth munch dust while longing for home.”
In “Country Love” the poet compares his country to the lips of his beloved:
“The taste of my country’s soil.
“Is strawberry like red lips of the One.”
Women’s liberation and freedoms are brought to the fore in Woman Fire:
“Don’t deny me millions of fountains of happiness,
“I am not your property I am a Woman, Woman Am I.”
Moetsabi the poet sets the reader on an organic integration with Zimbabwe, Africa and the Oriental East that has looked after him despite the war in Afghanistan. Yet, at the heart of all the poetic pieces lies universal human values and experiences in the quest to belong and to love and be loved.
Moetsabi — who is also the founder of Savannah Arts and co-founder of the Association of Community Theatre as well as the Association for Children and Young People – says the poems were inspired by “Zimbabwe; travels around the world; anti-apartheid and anti-slavery activism; and a passion for family, home, nature, adventure, human feelings, women’s rights, freedom of expression, children’s rights, social justice, and all forms of art and love.”
And true to his words, the huge mass of poetry featured in this anthology are indeed an inventory of his travels around different parts of the globe, from Harare in Zimbabwe where his family is based, to Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, where he is based, through South Africa, Namibia and Ethiopia, all of which he has visited on duty.
One dominant theme that pervades this book is Moetsabi’s nostalgia for home, family, wife and above all, the continent Africa which in some instances he metaphorically refers to as his lover.
This longing is aptly captured in the poem titled “A Lyrical Release of the Outing You Have Initiated”, which expresses his desire to return home and drink in the pleasures that Zimbabwe and Africa as well as his wife and children offer him without inhibitions. The poems becomes the voice of all those expatriates and people living in exile who are yearning for the call of the motherland as they strive to eke out a living in foreign lands.
The poet is also a lover of nature as exhibited in the titled “Romance” which which shows the correlation between nature and human beings and their conjoinment is likened to romance.
“Songs of perched chirping birds/mingle with the ancient music of mbira music queens/playing in the clam air.”
This is one powerful collection of poems that ever to emerge from a Zimbabwean writer. Moetsabi spent a good part of his childhood in Bulawayo and Harare. His other published poetry anthologies include “Fruits and Other Poems” (1998) and “Fated Changes” (2002). Some of his poems were also published in “Coming Home: Poems of Africa” and “New Accents One”. He also featured alongside Steve Biko in the film “Cry Freedom”.
Online Reporter