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The newly published English poetry collection ‘‘A Shower of Poetic Vistas’’ (2015, Zimbabwe Women Writers) by Shumirai Mugombi-Nhanhanga is empowering in its wisdom and accessible language. The poet says the collection was written over a period of 17 years. That is truly an era! It was edited by writer and academic Josephine Muganiwa and was launched late last month at the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe auditorium in Mt. Pleasant, Harare. That the poems were produced over such a long period explains the diversity of occasions and life experiences that turned on the shower of these poetic vistas. Each poem is aptly a vista or panorama rich with scenery of words, simple words which the poet hews spontaneously out of things usually ignored.
Nhanhanga’s poems are not highfalutin but natural, educative and entertaining voices of wisdom. They plead with humanity to revise its ways and consider making the world a better place through culture, education, and love in all spheres of life.
The anthology is broken into fourteen thematic sections which touch on issues to do with the home and family, a love for one’s country, nature, HIV and AIDS, as well as human rights, particularly children’s rights, and others.
The first section titled “Grandparents and Senior Citizens” comes with six poems dedicated to old people. Although the poems under this section are a celebration of old people and their timeless value to society, the poems are particularly interested in the grandmother.
Indeed senior citizens are a wonderful, peace-loving people but are today’s youths aware of the privilege of having old and wise people among them? The poem ‘‘Let us Remember’’ reminds both youths and adults that they too will also age and will need love and respect, hence the opportunity to offer the same to the ageing and senile.
The section under the topic ‘‘Family Poetry’’ is largely about women and in fact the whole anthology, one way or another, raise awareness about how a woman brings dignity to her home and family, and nation at large.
‘‘Going to School’’ is an interesting section with ten poems revolving around the school. We all have memories of our first days at schools, the excitement and the fears. The school as a knowledge centre is captured well in the section but there are also negative forces of poverty that hinder educational progress. For instance, in the poem ‘‘School Shoes’’, the persona regards his/her old shoes as a curse!
Education is one of the rights that children have as articulated in a section under the topic ‘‘Children’s Rights’’. A child who is denied this special right often ends up in the street and the vagaries of street life often lead to disease, crime and death. The persona in a poem titled ‘‘Street Life is not by Choice’’ captures the sad life of a small boy caught up in the savage chains of street life and the cruel vanity of the outside world:
I saw him sniff glue
But the shivering would not stop
I had to be insensitive
To be unaware of the contrast between us
There I was
Dressed like a queen
Looking for shelter to protect my expensive hairdo
And there he was making do with glue-induced illusion.
The poetic vistas are not always beautiful. Sometimes they are ugly and painful to experience. Nhanhanga’s poetic eye is observant. As a poet, she does not leave the reader without an answer. She is cognizant of the world’s need for answers to some of the problems we are facing today such as HIV and AIDS.
To add her voice to the fight against this pandemic, she has in the anthology various poems under a section ‘‘On HIV and AIDS Pandemic’’. Among other solutions, she encourages people to resist temptation.
The section under which Nhanhanga takes a certain poetic turn is the one under the topic ‘‘Sentimental Journeys and Reflections’’. The poems in this section are hardly direct addresses to the reader but they speak from somewhere in the depths of mind.
According to a report by Writers International Network Zimbabwe (WIN-Zimbabwe) on its blog, it is from this section that award-winning author Memory Chirere picked his favourite poem titled ‘‘Up in the Sky’’.
It is reported that Chirere, speaking at the launch of the anthology, told guests he read the poem several times alone that he became curious to know what occasion had given birth to this beautiful piece in which the persona wishes to be ‘‘Up in the sky/where birds fly high/where beautiful blue sky is endless’’.
The poem is transcendentalist in nature and this applies also to the few other poems under this ‘‘Sentimental Journeys and Reflections’’ section. For instance, the poem ‘‘Memory Journey’’ pictures a thoughtful, knitting woman sitting under a tree. In her private thoughts, she is sailing on her ‘‘sentimental journeys/that make her smile secretively/and frown a little’’. She is jerked back to reality by ‘‘the sound at the gate’’ that “makes her wonder what she will cook for the visitors’’.
Readers, particularly primary and secondary school students will appreciate the poetry because it has a performance edge to it.
Nhanhanga is a performance poet and this is seen in the form of some of her poems in the anthology.
The students will also, through reciting some of the poems, learn more about their country and continent, and the discipline and virtues that society expects from them.
A section under the topic ‘‘Up and Around’’, with eleven poems, portrays the physical vistas that Zimbabwe and Africa at large is endowed with. One is challenged to tour the country that is Zimbabwe after reading either the poem ‘‘Proud to be Zimbabwean’’ or ‘‘Tourist Attractions in Zimbabwe’’ in which ‘‘the balancing rocks of Epworth/ will stun you with their poise/Chinhoyi’s pools refuse to reveal their exact depth/no matter what/ Kariba is an engineering feat of gigantic proportions’’.
Other sections in the anthology are ‘‘Celebrating Africa Scientific Renaissance Day’’, ‘‘Love, Courtship and Marriage’’, ‘‘Talking’’, ‘‘Conceit and Poverty’’, ‘‘Eulogies’’ ‘‘Security’’ and ‘‘Celebrations’’.
The shortest piece in the whole anthology is a poem titled ‘‘What is Poverty’’ and in two lines, poverty is said to be ‘‘a slave/to those who live in abundance’’.
Some poems are narrative and others are song-inspired that the reader at times realises the need for hearing the sound of the poem to understand its power.
Born in 1965, Shumirai Nhanhanga is also well-known as a performance poet, having taken part at various national gatherings and arts festivals.
She has been featured in other Zimbabwe Women Writers publications such as the anthologies ‘‘Light a Candle’’ and ‘‘Totanga Patsva’’ and also in different online publications. A holder of Bachelor of Technology, Education Management degree from Tshwane University in South Africa, Nhanhanga teaches at Admiral Tait in Harare.
‘‘A Shower of Poetic Vistas’’ is her debut poetry collection in English and was published with support from the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust.
Online Reporter