adminBeaven Tapureta Bookshelf
Sometime in May this year this column carried an article with a ‘painful’ question which was put under scrutiny and the question was: “Where are Shona female poets”?
The argument then rested on the observation made regarding a number of Shona poetry anthologies that had been published in the past few years, which feature more male than female poets.
This spell of ‘gender ignorance’ regarding Shona poetry is not yet broken as written poetry by young female poets has continued to bloom onto the scene in English.
The latest of such English anthologies is a collection titled “Life” (2015, Pen Feathers Media), which is a duet of poets Catherine Magodo-Mutukwa and Awande Ngwenya. The collection was edited by Tatenda Charles Munyuki who also runs an emerging publishing company. In this anthology the reader will be surprised to note that the poetry is flooded with gripping words well-crafted that they appeal to both males and females.
This writer read the collection “Life” and it was just interesting! This is the enticing magic of poetry, that even when the poems are editorially arranged in a certain way, the collection’s spirit, not the ‘body’, always somehow sounds or feels differently like the days of the month or months of the year or years of a decade, and so forth!
The last poem in the collection by Awande has the last lines: “but still grab your victory/still we rise.” It is titled “Winner”. At this time when economic disharmony is rocking our beautiful country, it is nation-building to think like a winner, that we will win as a united country.
But we cannot win alone, we need friends. Trust and friendship are golden virtues that one hardly finds in this techno-crazy, back-biting world. Nations have risen against each other. In our daily lives, either in the cities or villages, wars are fought where ‘friendship’ (not real friendship) once existed. Who then are our timeless friends? Is it true that best friends may not be true friends? Awande, in her simple poem “Friendship”, knows that wherever there is true friendship, it is best to “keep it real”.
Her poem “A Mother’s Sins” reminds the reader of the real life stories in the book “A Tragedy of Lives”, which is a collection of interviews with Zimbabwean women in prison conducted by Zimbabwe Women Writers. The book was published by Weaver Press in 2003 and chronicles very touching confessions of crimes committed by women some of whom killed their husbands in domestic disputes and ended up in prison. Awande turns to the poetical route to show the guilt of a woman who murdered her husband only to later learn that she carries his child.
The guilty woman in the poem “A Mother’s Sins” contrast with the determined woman in the poem “Phenomenal Woman” who ‘has embraced pain like a baby’, and yet ‘has provided light for those in darkness’.
Underneath Awande’s poetry there is a voice calling out for order, for peace and love. The city land barons who in recent days have been arraigned before the courts have caused many families to suffer. Selling and re-selling prohibited land, the barons leave vulnerable families exposed to the wrath of council authorities and imagine a father, facing the bulldozers, wailing:
“They commanded for it to stumble down
I watched as one brick after another
My haven tumbled” (Where Is Hope).
Awande’s poetry at times takes the advisor’s tone, simple and straightforward. Yet in some poems, the TNT explodes at the ‘touch’ of the reading eye!
Catherine Magodo-Mutukwa’s last poem in the middle of the anthology acts as a signal for a different kind of exploration of life awaiting the reader. Her diction is well orchestrated to create gripping atmospheres of agony caused by evils such as rape, xenophobia, and poverty. Her powerful imagery blends well with the message.
A woman’s worth is shown by respect of her rights. When she is treated like squeezed lemon and thrown away, her anger is extreme. Mutukwa captures this anger of women in different chains but she often targets those who have lost hope and give them a voice, a kind of re-awakening. The personae are against silence.
Poems such as “You” (The Other Woman), “Wife of Many Years” and “The Cheat” encourage women to peacefully speak out against abuse of their human rights. Like her friend Awande’s poem “A Mother’s Sin”, Mutukwa’s poem “The Cheat” demonstrate that sometimes it does not help to use violent reaction faced with a domestic problem.
As you turn the pages towards the beginning of the collection, the reader drives through ironical poetry about poverty, but then stops to hear the voice of the persona in the poem “Birth Right” condemning the amnesia of the new generation regarding the importance of the liberation struggle.
“Here we are today and
That act of heroism
A forgotten memory…”
The two poets in this collection show an interest in inserting Shona words or phrases in some places in the whole body of the English poem. Awande goes to the extent of using a Shona refrain in one of her poems. At times a Shona title is assigned to the English poem. The effect is superb as the poems begin to sound experimental and musical. Language is, in essence, musical and when two different languages are mixed with poetic skill, the collective impact is great.
Catherine Magodo-Mutukwa has been publishing her poetry in different anthologies such as “Back to the Hills”, which was her debut anthology in 2011, “We Are One” (Diaspora Publishers, 2013), “Reflection” (2014) and “Silent Cries: The Violated Speak” (2015). Awande Ngwenya (real name Sympathy Sibanda-Mazuruse) last published her own poetry anthology titled “Matters of Life” in 2009 (Veriest Solutions International) and later released a CD of Christian poetry and music called “On His Bosom”. She has performed her poetry at different platforms. Apart from writing, she is a business woman and humanitarian.
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