WEALTH OF IDEAS

The book we have been waiting for, Low Notes, by Lisa Dominguez Abraham, is now out. Published by Red Wing Press of West Sacramento, this concise volume of poetry looks promising. We will post a review here soon, and Munyori Poetry Journal will feature Lisa's works, and, possibly, an interview.

The California Lectures series brought Wangari Maathai to my neighborhood; all I had to do was cross my street and pay $30.00. Two hours wisely spent as I listened to the inspiring story of how planting trees in Kenya led to a Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai has a persuasive presence, and she does a good job of conveying the green message. Yet another example of African talent.

Picture © Tawanda Gumbo " Tawanda Gumbo , M.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas assistant professor of internal medicine, who will develop a treatment regimen based on blocking the mechanisms that tuberculosis bacteria use to evade killing by antibiotics" has won the 2007 NIH Director's Pioneer/New Innovator Award. The NIH News reports, "NIH selected the award recipients through special application and evaluation processes that engaged 262 experts from the scientific community in identifying the most highly competitive individuals in each pool. The Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH, performed the final review and made recommendations to Zerhouni based on the evaluations by the outside experts and programmatic considerations". Tawanda Gumbo is a poet and novelist whose works portray Zimbabwean life, and his contribution to science is highly commendable at a time when the media seems to focus on the negative aspects of Zimbabwe. P...

Roof egg I laugh. This piece is dedicated to my English 301 class who validated it as a poem. I wrote it to illustrate how just putting words together does not necessarily make one a poet, but the students saw beyond these words. They saw shelter, food and happiness and they said the poem addressed a larger concern of life and that it was complete. I therefore saw it fit to entitle the poem Happiness, but my question is: can the two things listed in the poem lead to a qualification of happiness, or are we talking about one person's view of happiness as typifying versions of happiness like it? "Roof", they argued, covered our need for shelter, even the crazy housing market in the United States, particularly in California, which has made us question the whole concept of the "American Dream" house, even in a situation where lenders get into impossible contracts with subprime borrowers. Then they moved on to consider egg as either life-enabling, or just as represe...

Ngugi is an important writer, prolific. He has played a big role in shaping African literature. Because of the sheer size of his work - his novels, his essays -, he deserves one of these European prizes that everyone gets. Recently, Achebe received the Mann Booker prize for his literary achievement; we all (I know I did) celebrated such an honor. Now, where is Ngugi's Mann, Ngugi's Nobel, Ngugi's Booker? Don't tell me his works are too political to be practical for these prizes, or that his stance on language and literature is too radical. He still writes (translates) in English, goes on to portray the experiences of his people, and as a writer, stays close to politics, in some cases taking the position of the voice of the voiceless, has been improsioned for such choices, and now he holds an important position in the area of international languages and translation there in California's Orange County. Ngugi, let me hasten to say, should be accorded the honor he dese...

The nest is a poem that no words (even these) can build yet. But what bird, under what influence, would build a nest this close to the ground?

At McKinnely Park, remembering a soccer childhood.

Reading a powerful writer, even a not-so-powerful one, may inspire a writer to start typing away; typing something that may morphe into a work of substance. Slow reading - that's what I specialize in, because I get a chance to reflect on the narrative in relation to my experience, or the various experiences in the landscape of my writing. My writing, I like its rich terrain, the countryside of Zimbabwe, the beautiful chaos of High Field, the shining presence of Glenview, now slightly ruined by Operation Murambatsvina, the green and jagged presence of Chimanimani and Chipinge: these are some of the places with which I connect what I read. So, let's say I am reading John Steibeck's "The Chrysanthemums", in which he introduces the story by describing fog that closes on the Salinas valley like a lid, I am taken back to Chipinge or Rusitu valley; I am reminded of the morning fog there, especially on that day when I arrived at Chipinge bus terminus and found out that al...

There has been blogger's block here. Well, I have been busy reading submissions for Munyori Poetry Journal, and getting into the new semester. The submissions to Munyori so far are reflective of an increasingly globalized village; I have entries from Bolivia to Ghana to Serbia to Zimbabwe. Lot's of US submissions, of course. The new debut issue of Munyori comes out on October 5. This journal is monthly. Perhaps the first issue will feature only poetry, but the subsequent ones will a mixture of essays, interviews, profiles and commentary. Adding some more: Some may ask, why the name Munyori? This word comes from the beautiful Shona language, and it means 'Writer". So basically, Shona allows me to say "Writer Poetry Journal". Why did I choose the Shona name? I figured I don't have a Shona name, so why not name the literary journal in Shona. These online journals tend to have unique names, from Pedestal to Zygote, to Ovi to Safusy. This is a way to stay away...