There’s no such thing as love: Poet

Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
Award-WINNING poet Tinashe Tafirenyika is working on a poem titled “There’s no such thing as love” which is expected to spark debate on Valentine’s Day on Sunday.

The poet will release the poem, that is in the form of a video, on Valentine’s Day and is expected to spark debate on the concept of love.

Tafirenyika said the poem explores the idea that a lot of things believed to be love, are either social conditioning or a biological reaction meant to help humans survive. “I know the title sounds quite definitive, but the poem actually seeks to question our actions and feelings.

Do we really love our screaming toddlers or do the hormones in our brains prevent us from leaving them by the roadside out of sheer frustration. Because if you think about it, a lot of things we do in the name of love, even familial love or patriotism, are a bit unreasonable, could there be some sort of bigger, and/or external force driving us,” said Tafirenyika.

“The poem will be released on Valentine’s Day as a bit of a prank, to tell people there’s no such thing as love in between the roses and the chocolates and the teddy bears, all of which are supposed to symbolise love.” The poet added that she also wants people to interrogate what love means to them as they celebrate Valentine’s Day.

“This is not to say don’t buy your girlfriend nice things, it’s to say what you believe is love and how you express it may not necessarily be correct.

Therefore, you have to interrogate your ideas about love and its expression to figure out how much of it is you and how much is peer pressure, for example, an imaginary association celebrating a lack of generosity as if it’s an admirable thing,” said Tafirenyika.

The Nama award-winning poet thanked dance practitioner and actor, Alexander Mhlanga for helping her fuse poetry and dance to the piece.

“With help from Alex, I managed to fuse poetry and dance on this particular piece and turned the poem into a video. I’ve always toyed around with the idea of making a video featuring a dancer so it was great to finally live out that fantasy,” said Tafirenyika.

“I also received a lot of help during production from Billman Dube, Nkanyeziyethu Malunga who designed the costume, Nozibulo Moyo and Brian Moyo who helped us with some of the equipment and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo where we shot the video.”