For Six Weeks, One Ghana, One Voice Features Poetry on Zimbabwe

For six weeks, One Ghana, One Voice will feature poems on Zimbabwe. The first featured poet is the vibrant Prince Mensah, whose poem centers on the history of Zimbabwe and highlight resilience through highlighting the idea that Zimbabwe is indeed Zimba Remabwe (house of stone).

The poem is accompanied by an author interview, in which Mensah displays his knowledge of the challenge bedevilling Africa. Here is an extract:

4. What lessons can Zimbabwe learn from Ghana's history? What lessons can Ghana learn from Zimbabwe?

Zimbabweans can learn the power of tolerance from Ghana. Trust me; we have had volatile situations that could have ended up in chaos. Yet, there is a cultural underpinning that rejects bloodshed as a way of solving issues. The way of Gandhi is better than the way of guns. In the end, the best person to change Zimbabwe for the better is the Zimbabwean who is ready to make sacrifices and take risks, in order to move the dream forward.

Ghanaians can learn the value of higher education from Zimbabweans. Getting either a Masters Degree or Doctorate is a rite of passage for Zimbabweans. This enables them to excel in and out of their country, enabling them to garner the experience and expertise to contribute to nation building. I do not mean that holding a graduate degree is the panacea to our problems. However, it opens up possibilities for the individual in a country where opportunities are few.

To read the rest of the interview, please go to One Ghana, One Voice and while you are there, check out their Writer's Service.

African Writing News

A new short story contest is being offered by MyAfricandiaspora.

Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. See the whole story here.

The African Roar fiction anthology was in the news a couple of time this week, Books SA and in the Sunday News (Bulawayo).

What am I Reading these Days?

Loads of student papers (essays and fiction pieces)--they keep flooding. Yet, my hunger for some leisure reading is insatiable too, so these are the books I carry around these days, hoping that maybe over lunch I may read several pages:

Philip Caputo: Crossers (I actually finished this one and reviewed it for the Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review),
Ha Jin: A Good Fall, which will be available in bookstores in December.
Lucy Howard-Taylor: Biting Anorexia (reviewing it for Sac Book Review)
Wil Wheaton: The Happiest Days of Our Lives (coming out in December); reviewing it for Sac Book Review
William Styron: The Suicide Run, a collection of short stories. I love the serpentine wriggle of the sentences in these stories; Styron knew his way in the jungle of language; remember Sophie's Choice?

I probably owe the poetry world ten to fifteen reviews, but nowadays I carry around A Tiara for the Twentieth Century by Suzanne R Harvey.

These are the new things out there, and there are more that I hunger for: Kazuo Ishiguro's new short story collection, Margaret Atwood's new novel, A.S. Byatt's Children's Book and many others.

Of the old publications, I keep within reach copies of Say You're One of Them (Akpan), Housekeeping (Robinson), Unaccustomed Earth (Lahiri), Cathedral (Carver), African Stories (Lessing). Just in case I get bored somewhere, or that I may end up getting some spare time, I may sneak in a short story or two. Reading, it's a lot of fun, I tell you.

New Fiction Journal (NFJ) Launch: A Brief Intro

This post features an excerpt from Sunil Sharma's introduction to a new international journal called New Fiction Journal (NFJ). Here, in Sunil Sharma's words, is the information about this new journal:


NFJ is all about fiction and fiction writing. Old fiction written in a new way and challenging/defying our pre-existing conceptions about this most popular form of the world literature. It is dangerous stuff being composed by very mobile imaginative minds across a fast-shrinking globe by some very talented writers---old and emerging.

The NFJ wants screaming fiction: a piece of writing that is unhappy with the deterministic narrow framework of story-telling decided by previous generation(s) of writers, literary editors and academics---that is all the arbiters of tastes for you. The ideal New Writer (NW) for us at NFJ is typically impatient---the way our beloved Derrida was with the western logos and everything foundational, metaphysical and fixed. He was, as his comrades gleefully point out, unhappy with everybody except himself. So the poor chap deconstructed everything sacred, static and traditional in one single sweep---to the utter delight of the restive Americans in perpetual search for something new and challenging to replace the earlier pantheon of the new and exciting in their national culture of the instant gratification---and got himself installed as the new demi-god of the western cultural world. He spoke and everybody thought he as the official spokesperson held the secret keys to all the sacred civilizational truths till rediscovered Bakhtin demolished the French in the little arena of competitive ideas.

The NW is more or less like these icons, ready to demolish and then, willingly or unwillingly, become enshrined in the popular mythologies. Something cannot be helped. To-day’s radical is to-morrow’s conservative. Regis Debray syndrome? Yeah. All the Parisian intellectuals of some significance of the 60s and 70s were just that before the allure of the establishment caught up with them and claimed them as apologetic defenders of the faith. But this is the second painful part of being a successful public figure of a market economy.

For us, that early rebellion is still relevant and any way, youthful radicalism part is always better of a great career than the geriatric status quoits mindset of a failed revolutionary; better a reformed rebel than no rebel and die as a happy, complacent and wealthy organic man of the wicked world. Radicals change the world; some make it in their image, others, however, become its mirror-image. Some subversion is important for our mental health. It can be at purely thought level or formal or linguistic one…murder to create thing, you know. The idea is to break out of old moulds…and create new ones till somebody else comes and does it for you what you did to your holy predecessors. But that is life any way. Our kids always treat us as scum of the earth and rebel, only to get sucked in the same mire and become same as us. Little ironies of life!

It is New Fiction or NF we are on the lookout for our journal, preferably composed in English for varied audiences across the English-speaking world; restive audiences eager to sample shifting perspectives, dialogic voices and conflicting view-points; that startling solid Pound-like crisp image or powerful arresting visual; the haunting music of carefully-crafted lines near a sea shore or in solitude of mind or heart, in brief, white creativity originating and erupting forcefully in multiple cultural locations and active, feverish finer mindscapes that soar in places, whether you like it or not, only few can visit.

NF, by definition, is restless, cerebral, innovative, gravity-defying, Eureka-moment, multi-disciplinarian thing and is ready to challenge the overused dull lusterless decaying conventions and moribund boundaries of the art of fiction and fiction telling. It is to be edited by some very fine people: some venerable university dons, others about to become, while some young angry Osbornes wanting desperately to re-write their own histories in hot flushes of deep rage.

If you think you have all the mixed cultural genes of Monet, Borges, Ginsberg and Guevara, to name but a few, you are welcome aboard the New Fiction Journal for a long and exciting mental journey across varied colourful landscapes conducted by the best fictionists of the time. In an instant, the eclectic experience will change from monochromatic to pure psychedelic.

Send your shorts, micros, comments, interviews to our proposed half-yearly journal that is global in tastes and standards, and, of course, headed by an international editing team.

Indian journals will not look the same again. We will provide the epochal and the revolutionary. The rest depends on God and our valued patrons on terra firma. Amen!

Contact: drsharma.sunil@gmail.com

30th Anniversary Event for the Sacramento Poetry Center

The following message was submitted by Tim Kahl, Events coordinator and Vice-President of the SPC Board:



Presents

30th Anniversary Event for the Sacramento Poetry Center

Monday, October 26 at 7:30 PM
1719 25th Street at HQ for the Arts

The Sacramento Poetry Center - Sacramento's center for the literary arts since 1979, marks its anniversary with the release of Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years. Keepers, published by Rattlesnake Press, was collected and edited by Mary Zeppa, Kate Asche, and Emmanuel Sigauke.

“Our goal is to give the reader a series of glimpses into the first 30 years of the Sacramento Poetry Center. Think of it as the in-print version of a highlight reel, brought to on-paper life by the remarkable generosity and amazing tech savvy of Photographer Charlie McComish and Graphic Designer Richard Hansen.”

It’s going to be a festive night, a relaxed and celebratory gathering, light on formal presentation. The Editors plan to talk a little about SPC’s history and about the project. Contributors to Keepers (which includes an interview with Theresa Vinciguerra and brief essays by Julia Connor, MerryLee Croslin, Victoria Dalkey, Patrick Grizzell, Heather Hutcheson, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Bob Stanley and Stan Zumbiel) Publisher Kathy Kieth, Graphic Designer Hansen and Photographer McComish have also been invited to join in the discussion.

Libations and light refreshments will be provided. And, in the spirit of the occasion, the walls of SPC will display a sampling of photos, posters and “artifacts” from the Center’s first 30 years.

By a delightful piece of serendipity, the celebration will take place on (by then Mayor Anne Rudin’s proclamation) Sacramento Poetry Day. Please join us for the October 26 festivities at SPC, 1719 25th Street (in the California Stage complex at 25th and R) 7:30 - 10:00pm.

California Lectures Presents A. S. Byatt

On Thursday, October 22, A.S Byatt will present at the Crest Theater in downtown Sacramento. Here are the event's details:

A.S. Byatt
Booker Prize | Bestselling Author
The Children’s Book (Oct. 2009), Possession,
Still Life, Angels and Insects
Time of event: 7:30 pm

A.S. Byatt is renowned internationally for her novels and short stories. She has received numerous literary awards including the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award for Still Life, and the Booker Prize for Fiction for Possession: A Romance. Possession and her novella, Angels and Insects, are adapted into highly regarded films. A distinguished literary critic and teacher, Byatt was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1999 and received the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in 2002.

Byatt's latest novel, The Children's Book, was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize.

“A.S. Byatt is a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights.”
– The New York Times Book Review

Amiri Baraka: We are Already in the Future

In a rare West Coast appearance, poet, playwright, essayist and political activist Amiri Baraka delivers a historic speech on President Barack Obama.

One of the true giants of international poetry, Amiri Baraka is a towering presence in the history of the United States and throughout the Americas. A transitional figure in both the Beat Generation and Civil Rights Era, Amiri Baraka is also known as the father of the Black Arts Movement. In 2008, during the primary and general election cycles, Amiri Baraka continued to surprise, delight and provoke his friends and enemies with a series of rigorous, inventive, and powerfully deciphering essays on then candidate Barack Obama. With this unique, once in a lifetime, event Amiri Baraka will revisit those essays, and bring his keen, always original, interpretation of the Obama Presidency in it's first year. The talk will be immediately followed by a discussion with Justin Desmangles, and continue with a question and answer period with the audience.

Date: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009. 1PM

KORET AUDITORIUM, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY, MAIN BRANCH
100 LARKIN STREET

Mensa Press (USA) Makes Calls for Poetry Submissions

Fellow poet and friend, Prince Mensah, tells me he has started a small press that will focus on poetry publication. Below are the different calls for submission.

Call for Submissions for The War Against War Anthology

Mensa Press seeks poetry that speaks against war and about the atrocities committed in its name. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will also be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is December 31st, 2009.


Call for Submissions for Visions of the Motherland Anthology

Mensa Press seeks poetry from African poets which celebrates the various cultures, tribes and people of Africa. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is January 31st, 2009.



Call for Submissions for Defiled Sacredness Anthology

Mensa Press seeks poetry from all over the world about the effects of rape and sexual abuse on society and the individual. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is December 31st, 2009.

Call for Submissions for Whispers in The Whirlwind Anthology

Mensa Press seeks poetry from African poets about socio-economic challenges in Africa. Suggested themes are corruption, tribalism, cronyism, bureaucracy, coup d’états and any other situation that stagnates the progress of African countries. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will also be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is January 31st, 2009.


Call for Submissions for We Come From One Place Anthology

Mensa Press seeks poetry from all over the world about the ills of racism, sexism, ethno-centricism and nepotism. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is December 31st, 2009.

Pocket Money (a version of a short story)

I started school the year Mukoma sneaked out of the country and went back to South Africa. Two nights before he left, he came to my sleeping hut to show me my new school books. Those books smelled sweet and looked delicious. I sat on my mat smiling and picturing myself at school with other students from all over Mazvihwa.
Mukoma must have seen my joy because he said, "These are not sweets, but love them the way you love sweets."

I sat there nodding.

“Love them more,” he said, smiling, the first time I had seen him look happy in a long time.

The incident reminded me of an earlier one, when he gave me my own bag of sweets for the first time. He had never given any child in the extended family his or her own full bag. He had taken me behind the hut to give me the bag.

He was drunk, but he was not staggering, nor was he stumbling over his words when he handed me the big bag: “Eat as much of these as you want, then when you are full, go and share with others what’s left of them.” He waited for my reaction, which was delayed because I was too shocked to say anything, so he added, “You don’t have to share if you choose. These are yours, from your true brother.” Then he lit a nice-smelling cigarette, and while smoking, watched me fish through the bag for favorite pieces. “Maybe you can select the best pieces and give away the ugly ones,” he said, sucking his teeth, before bringing the cigarette to his mouth again.

“I think I will eat them all. They are all my favorite ones,” I said, stopping the hunt for the good pieces. I wanted the whole bag to myself.

With a look of contentment, as if my taking time to fish through the bag had been a skill he expected me to have, he patted me on the shoulders and went back where other men were drinking beer. I stayed behind the hut until I was satisfied that the pieces I had eaten were the best. Oh, how I ate those sweets whose smell was so delicious that I decided not to share even the ugly pieces with anyone. That Mukoma had favored me like that meant a lot to me. But I had not felt as special as I did on the night he showed me the school books.

Mukoma’s wife, Maiguru, had already told me that I was probably going to borrow Ranga’s used books since he was two grades ahead of me. Ranga was the child of one of our neighbors and he always got all the books he wanted since his uncle, who had inherited Ranga’s mother when her husband died, worked somewhere in Shabani. So he was just like a father to Ranga, and a good one because he always said, “Let the little ones learn. Who knows? Maybe when this war ends, they will be our leaders.” Since Ranga had all the books needed at school, and some extra ones to read for fun, many parents came to him to borrow the books he no longer needed.

Maiguru had stressed I had to be good to Ranga so he would give me his Grade 1 books. “That’s how it was for some of us when we started school too,” she explained. “We got our books from older children who were already in Grade 2.”

I wasn’t going to give away my books after I was done with them. I would keep them until I had books that filled my heart, sweet-smelling books I would keep forever. And Mukoma was saying, “I present to you these books as your torch into the darkness of ignorance.”

I sat there trying to understand him. But then I decided not to understand him yet, because the right time would come later. I focused on the beauty of the books instead.

“What I am saying now doesn’t have to make sense to you, but you will treasure these words; the words I was brought here on earth to teach you,” Mukoma said, after allowing me to admire the books.

Years later I would try to understand what he had meant with those words, but that was to no avail. He had been clear about his aspirations for me: “I want you to tighten your belts and walk into this jungle of life where with these torches you will live a life even happier than mine. This is the road I wanted walk but I was never able to. Now I want you to walk it well, go to places that I may never be able to go.” Father had died while he was still in what was then called Standard 4, and there had been no one to pay for his school fees. “But you don’t worry about me. I am the one who worries about you.”

“I will go everywhere,” I said, chuckling, and he laughed.

I always liked the few moments we laughed together. I liked that first night of books.

When he finished smoking he sent me to the kitchen hut to fetch a cup of water for him. He told me he wanted to teach me how to read, so he sat with me on my sleeping mat, first pinching his nose because of the smell of urine. But he did not talk about that; instead, he started to present the books to me, one by one. I was surprised because I had never seen him read a book before, except the magazines with lots of nice pictures that he had said I should not touch. But on this night he brandished the books like bazookas, and sat on the floor with his legs outstretched in front of him, his whole body leaning forward.

He had bought me three different books. One was for English, a language he said I was going to learn properly at school, the other was for Shona, which he said was the formal name of the language we spoke, and the third was for what he explained as the numbers subject, Mathematics. As he explained each book, he looked in the air as if he was thinking about something serious, then he would let out a brief laugh and continue talking with a boyish joy.

I knew what English was because I had heard him speak it with his friends, then once in a while when Mai said things like "Fokof! Fokof!" I knew that was English. Sometimes, drunk old men and women at beer gatherings would argue and always ended up throwing in English words like “Blarry furu!”, “I blast you!” and “idiot!” Maiguru, Mukoma’s wife, used some English too, and once she told me that I was “stupet", but had said that I should not tell Mukoma that she had called me that, although the word sounded nice coming from her mouth. English was all around me; even the birds sounded English sometimes.

As Mukoma showed me the English book, I also wished that Maiguru had been there to read it. He had left her in their bedroom, but I would ask her to read some of the books to me since I knew she knew some English. Mukoma read several words in the book and asked me to tell him what I saw in the pictures. Then he read some more words, all the way to the middle of the book. And I was still awake, so awake that when he stopped I was disappointed. He must have seen my reaction because he said, “Your turn”.

I looked at the book blankly. Of course, he patted my head, laughed and said, “Don’t worry; one day you will be the one teaching people how to read this language.” I smiled and focused on the pictures. Mukoma read some more words.

On top of that, he was telling me that even the language we spoke was taught in schools. “If you think you know anything about our language wait until you start learning it in school. Some people study it at the university,” he paused. “But you wouldn’t know yet what a university is; I didn’t know for a long time too.”

He started to read from the Shona book. I was struck by the simplicity of the words and the sentences, and the number of pictures in the book. Mukoma showed me the pictures first and asked me what they were, different from what he had done with the English book. With the English book he had read the words first, then asked me to see what he had read in the pictures. Now he was saying, “You tell me what the picture is, then I will read the words for you.” I wanted him to read the words for me, so I tried hard to explain what I saw in the pictures: hens running, cattle grazing; dog and cat playing, dogs chasing hare, cat catching snake. Some of the pictures were of some beautiful homes that no one in Mototi could ever dream of building.

Then Mukoma read the sentences, and I was happy to find out that sometimes the words matched my explanation of the pictures.

The Mathematics book was full of colorful shapes and numbers.“These are detachable,” Mukoma said, but I did not understand what he meant. “Once you start school, and when you begin to use this book, the teacher may ask you to remove these shapes from the book so you can use them in group work with others.”

I nodded and smiled.

“Good, huh?” Mukoma said.

“I like pictures and shapes and words and English and Shona,’ I said.

He laughed for a moment, then said, “You’ll understand one day what you just said. But it’s a good sign that you like shapes already.”

He said these were not all the subjects I would learn in school; if I started strongly and continued to work hard, there would be other subjects waiting for me, and the learning process he called “advancing” or climbing a ladder would continue.

After the Math book we went back to the English one. He opened the colorful pages again and read so fluently that I just sat there dazed, listening to the sound of his voice, hoping that one day I would be as good as he was. The way his voice collapsed and reemerged through his nose, his lips curling as if the words he was reading were disgusting, but still managing to read like his voice was magic. Then he explained in Shona what he had just read, retreating to his normal voice.
The story that struck me was one about an egg-like boy who fell and cracked his egg head. Brother had a hard time stopping me from laughing at the boy, and I could not wait to tell Chari about this strange little man, as brother called him. He noticed that the strangeness of the images of these people was attracting my attention and he explained, “Sooner or later you’ll know about them. In fact, this war that you hear people talking about will spread to this village too, and you will see people that look like these, the original speakers of English.”

“They are the English?” I asked.

“Not all the way, but they are related to what are known as the English-English, or the British. What I want you to know right now is that mastering their language will get you far.”

I knew I would have fun at school. I did not laugh as much when Mukoma read the Shona book, and I did not laugh once when he was reading the Mathematics one, but I still liked the colors and shapes. Mukoma said soon I would know how to count and spend my own money.

"But I don't have money," I said.

"I will leave you some money. We call it pocket money. Not many other children at your school are going to have pocket money. But you have a brother who works where?”

“South Africa-aa!” I said, feeling saturated with the things of the new books.

“Good boy. You will have your own pocket money that you shouldn't tell your Maiguru about,” he said, and paused, looking at the door. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “It’s our secret. Do you know how to keep secrets?"

“Yes, like the secret about the bag of sweets,” I said. “I ate them all myself.”

“Good boy. You will grow to understand that the life of a man is full of secrets.”

He paused and started scratching his face. “What other big secret should you keep?”
I scratched my face too, thinking. I knew the bag of sweets was not a secret
anymore. I had already talked about it. I knew the books were not a secret. Maiguru already knew about them.

“You know the big secret, the big-big one that no one in this village should know.”

I jerked my head up. “South Africa. I should not tell anyone that you work there,” I said.

He nodded and lit his face with another smile. He reached in his pocket and brought out some coins. “Here, this is your pocket money.”

I had new books and pocket money on my first day of school. I never told Maiguru about the money, several silver coins which I tied in a piece of cloth and kept for a long time as brother had instructed me. And with that, as with everything else, I became an expert in keeping Mukoma’s secrets.

A Really Cool Project

On October 26, the Sacramento Poetry Center celebrates its 30th anniversary and launches a book entitled Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center. The book features my interview with the founder of the Sacramento Poetry Center, Theresa Vinciguerra. It was a pleasure interviewing Theresa. She has a great love for poetry and her great sense of humor shines through the interview.

Working on the projects with Mary Zeppa and Kate Asche was a wonderful experience. We spent several months on it, meeting at Mary's house on Wednesdays, and each time I drove away, I had learned so much that all I wanted to do after the meeting was stop at a Borders or a Barnes & Noble and just be in the company of books, aware that on these shelves a great book would find its place one day.

For the last 30 years, Sacramento has done a lot in keeping the flame of poetry going, and I feel honored to have been allowed a glimpse into this rich past.

As I type this I am stealing glances at a proof of the book on my lap, not believing that we did it! But we did. Wait until you see the cover design, the photography, the personal stories by founding founding members, and other collectible pieces of information. like early editions of the Center's publication, even announcements, information about readings. No wonder the book is going to be referred to as "A Literary Resource."

The book is being published by Sacramento's own Rattlesnake Press, which also publishes the Rattlesnake Review, a journal that has featured three Zimbabwean poets as "Our Guest Poets from Overseas." It's one of the fastest growing small presses of Sacramento.

For those in the Sacramento region, go to the Sacramento Poetry Center for this important event, a celebration of the power of poetry.

Sunil Sharma's debut novel out

Sunil Sharma, a writer and scholar based in India, has published his first novel, The Minotaur. I featured Sunil's short story, "The Cacti", in the July/August 2009 issue of Munyori Literary Journal. He was also instrumental in the conception of the idea of the Indian-Zimbabwean short fiction anthology, which I am going to co-edit with him. Here are more details about the new publication:

The Minotaur is a chilling but familiar account of the rise and fall of a third-world despot. Riding the tidal wave of popular support, Caesar the Marxist, soon turns into a dictator and plunges his impoverished, exploited nation into a bloody civil war. Fleeing from his burning nation, he lands up in a remote island and declares himself the King. Then the personal descent of a once charismatic doctor-turned-guerilla leader into personal hell begins. The Minotaur is born and finally finds his nemesis, in the form of a radicalized native, on that remote island… A dark tale of power-crazy leaders, as relevant in today’s Africa or Latin America or South Asia, as it was in the ancient world.




About the Author

Sunil Sharma (b 1958) is currently Vice-principal, Reader and Head, Department of English, Model College—an A-grade college affiliated to the University of Mumbai—MIDC, Dombivli (East), in District Thane, Maharashtra, India. He is a bilingual critic, poet, dramatist, literary interviewer, editor, translator, essayist and fiction writer. Some of his short stories and poems have already appeared in prestigious e and print journals of global repute, like: Indian Literature (of Sahitya Akademy, New Delhi); Munyori (USA online); The Plebian Rag (USA online); New Woman (Mumbai); Kritya, Creative Saplings and Muse India (all three e-zines); the Seva Bharati Journal of English Studies (West Bengal); Prosopisia (Ajmer); Indian Literary Panorama (Mumbai); Contemporary Vibes (Chandigarh), and Indian Journal of Post-colonial Literatures (Kerala). Some of his stories have been anthologized also.

He is also a freelance journalist in English. His areas of strength are Marxism, Mass Media, Literary Theory and Cultural Studies. His book on the Philosophy of the Novel—A Marxist Critique is already published. The Minotaur is his debut novel that deals with contemporary socio-political realities.

From "Sizinda Sunset", my longest short story

What happened after breakfast, when I mentioned that I was going to leave in an hour, surprised me. It all started with Tete’s eyes glinting in the direction of Viji, who shook her head to signal that she had nothing to do with it.

“So what are you leaving us?” said Tete.

I didn’t have to think about this one.

“I will leave love, lots of love,” I said, looking at Viji.

“I mean something we can touch and smell,” Tete said. I could tell by the darting of her eyes that she was getting upset. Even her lips quivered, but she bit them and looked down.

Viji came to my rescue: “She’s talking about a sign, you know; something you’ll leave before you leave.”

“Sign?” I asked, shaking my head to show that I was confused still.

“You know, something to show commitment,” Viji said. “I am sure you know what Tete is talking about.” She sighed.
I must have taken too long to respond to Viji because Tete spoke before I did.

“Show us that we can relax knowing you are not planning to waste our time. Show us you will be visiting her parents soon.”

I wasn’t really planning to visit her parents soon, neither was I planning to waste her time. What sign did they need? I could not, for instance, leave a book, and I did not have enough money on me to offer as a sign.

Viji sat up and clenched her jaws. “Tete, can you just tell him what you want?” she said.

“And what has entered you?” Tete said. “Why are you pretending to understand his confusion? He knows what I am talking about.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Viji said.

“Didn’t you say he is from the rural areas?”

“But does that mean that he knows everything? He told you he’ll leave love.”

“Lots of love,” I said, getting very interested in what was developing here.

Tete looked at us both and started to laugh. I was about to join in the laughter, until I saw Viji’s eyes. It was time to listen to Tete.

“He will leave love, he says. Does he even know what that is?” Tete said, addressing the ceiling. Viji and I followed her eyes, but soon they descended on me. “That’s not enough, and you two know what I am talking about. You both might think you are being funny because you are talking to me who is harmless, but the responsibility I now have because I have met you is very high.”

There was a moment of silence as we let her words sink in. She had spoken them with a shredded voice, like she was complaining about her role as the aunt. I understood the reasons for her fear, the weight of responsibility on her shoulders, but I had not come to Sizinda for marriage plans. I had a whole college career ahead of me. So she had to think of something better to tell me, if she still felt there was something to be said.

“How much do you love your jacket?” she asked. “Yes, the one you are wearing. How much do you love it?”

“A lot, but not as much as I love her,” I said, pointing at Viji.

“Good,” she said. "Leave it with me. That will be a good sign; at least I will be able to answer their questions when they start to roast me about all this.”

At first I thought I had not heard her properly. Even Viji snorted in surprise. We both sat there looking at Tete’s face; I was looking for some evidence that she was just joking.

“I will make sure no one touches it. Even Viji here cannot touch it, then when you two set things right, I can give it back to you. What do you say to that?”

Perhaps that was the moment I should have laughed. The moment I should have told her I understood what she meant, the moment I should have offered to leave them something to show my commitment. Instead, I squinted at her, hoping there was no way she could be serious.

“Don’t look at me like you did not hear me”, she said, with a dry voice; then she extended her hand. “Jacket.”

I didn’t move, so Viji stirred, opened her mouth: “Yes, you heard her, honey.”

“No jacket is going to be left anywhere,” I said, but I wasn’t upset yet.

Tete withdrew her hand, but Viji stood up and extended hers, and waited for me to give her the jacket. Standing there, upsetting me, she still looked beautiful, but I had to say this: “You people must be slightly funny.”

“Now he is joking, right?” said Tete, dancing in her chair and looking at Viji, who glanced back at her and shook her head.

“I hope you don’t mean what you just said, Fati,” Viji said.

“No, tell me what part of what I said sounded like a joke. I’m not leaving my jacket here,” I said, already measuring the risk of just standing up and leaving, or sitting there and playing along. Maybe all this was a cultural game.

There was a moment of silence like the two were ducking from the boulders of my words. But the silence did not last. Suddenly, we all stood up, but both Viji and I were waiting for Tete to say something first.

“This time you brought an arrogant one,” Tete said. “What is this, Viji?” She was pointing at me like I was a dirty rug.

I didn't wait for Viji to answer that, so I said, “What do you mean ‘this time?’”

My stare curved from Tete to Viji.

“I mean this time,” Tete said, sneering. “Last time she did a better job.”

“Auntie!” shouted Viji, trying to cover the Tete’s mouth with her hand. The older woman dodged the hand and raised her voice. “You are one of those useless men who come here with buckets of sweet words and sacks of empty promises.” She looked around her like the other useless men were in the room with us, and I was their visible representative. “You think Viji here is your hure? You think you can just do what you want with her without commitment? Kuda kudziirwa chete?”

I did not know how to answer that, but I started shaking, more from discomfort than anger.

“Who do you think you are to come here, eat our food, sleep in our blankets, dance to our music, and when we ask you to leave a sign, you show arrogance like you own my niece? Who do you think you are?” She was now roaring. “Answer me!”

She had edged closer to the table, so I moved back. Viji wrenched herself out of the restraint of her chair and walked closer to Tete to prevent further movement. She whispered something to her,but that didn't help.

“You look at yourself and think you are a real man? Real men come here and leave gifts of substance. Real men would not think that a cheap jacket like that is too valuable to be left here.”

“Who are these men you keep talking about, these men who leave big gifts each time they come here?” I asked, now peering at her ugly face.

“Don’t worry who they are. Just know you are the worst of them all.”

I looked at Viji who averted her eyes and turned so that I was now looking at the back of her head. I tried to walk away from my chair but found myself sitting down.

“Talk to me!” said Tete, hammering the table with her fist. The impact shook a tea cup which rolled off the table and collapsed on the cement floor. Viji covered her ears and started twisting her body as it was itching, then she shuffled closer to her aunt, who was now already standing dangerously close to me.

“Don’t mess this one for me, please Tete.” Viji said, trying to hold her aunt’s hands.

“I want him to tell me,” she said, wrenching herself free from Viji’s grip. “Are you going to take off that jacket or should I remove it myself.” She advanced.

I sprung up and shook my shoulders as a sense of importance gripped me. Who did this simple woman think she was? I just had to tell her this: “Two things are not happening today. One, you shall keep your distance and not touch me. Two, no jacket is going to be left here.”

She stared at me with scalding eyes, then with a shaking voice said, “Only one thing is happening right now.” She pointed at me with a shaking finger. “Get out of my house!”

I had heard her loud and clear, so I turned and started walking backward toward the door, my eyes still on her.

“I don’t want to see you here ever again.”

I heard that too.

“Viji, go get this man’s bag. Hurry!” She shoed Viji out of the room, turned to me and said, “Why are you still here? Out!”

Outside, I found a few neighbors were already gathering, but they started walking away when they saw me. Then I remembered that Sifelani and his family were going to arrive soon and I did not want him to find me in this situation. Why was Viji taking long to bring my bag? I peered to see if I could see her through an open window, but as my eyes were busy looking for her, I heard the heavy sound of an object falling close to my feet. That was my bag, thrown by Tete, whose mass blocked the door.

“Better leave before trouble finds you. I don’t want to see you again,” she shouted, then slammed the door.

Chimamanda Adichie on "The Danger of a Single Story"

Thinking about "Happy Endings"

Perhaps as a way to demonstrate how plot works to shape a piece of fiction, Margaret Atwood wrote this humorous piece of inter-connected plot pieces. I am going to be talking about plot as a writer's tool at UCDE on Tuesday, and I thought I must share a link to Atwood's story. Here it begins:

John and Mary meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.

Read the rest of "Happy Endings" here.

After you read, challenge yourself and write a short piece of metafiction (it should be a story that talks about stories in some way, could even sound like a lesson on how to write stories or certain aspects of stories). Why do this? Because you can, and you have the time to do so. Who knows, you may actually end up producing an award-winning piece. Just like that.

Munyori Lit Journal: next issue out in November

We have been receiving lots of poetry and fiction (by our modest standards), and we are convinced that we are ready to make selections for he next issue, which should be out by November 5. We could use some more work in the following areas:

Book Reviews
Essays
Artwork/photos
author profiles
interviews

send your works to manu@munyori.com, or visit Munyori for guidelines.

The Crowning of Bob Stanley as Sacramento Poet Laureate

The event was inspiring. I read a Dambudzo Marechera poem first, followed by mine. Then I got to introduce other performers. Well-attended event. For those who may not know the full story, Bob is the newly-installed Sacramento Poet Laureate, who is also the president of the Sacramento Poetry Board, which I am part of.

Actually, it was Bob who introduced me to the Sacramento poetry commmunity since I had lived in the city for ten years without participating in poetry events. We were colleagues at Sacramento City College, and one day we started talking and I mentioned something to the effect that I scribbled poetry ( I was seriously putting together my collection), then he told me about the Sacramento Poetry Center, invited me to attend an event. I soon realized I had found an artistic home.

More details about the event have been covered by Kate Asche on her blog.

A Review of John Amen's At the Threshold of Alchemy

The Sacramento Poetry Center presents John Amen and Scott Weiss on Monday Oct. 5, at 7:30 PM. John Amen is the founder of the online literary journal The Pedestal, which was the first to publish and pay me for the first short story in what I am now calling the Mukoma series. That story is entitled "Mukoma's Marriage" and an early version of it can be read at The Pedestal Magazine.

I am happy that John will be in Sacramento, although I cannot attend the event due to a schedule conflict. I, however, would like to talk briefly about his latest poetry collection, At the Threshold of Alchemy, which I was reading earlier today. First, you need to know that John Amen takes his poetry seriously, like all poets do, of course, but he goes above and beyond in terms of promotion. He is currently on a national tour, visiting several major cities. And he has reason to; his new collection is spellbinding.

John Amen has been described as "brutally realistic", a poet who "flexes verbal muscles", pursuing a "relentless path through memory and dreamscape". These are the great words from the blurbs, but let's enter the book now.

The first piece is entitled "Purpose". Here the persona is upfront with us: we are told that he or she "is in love with what pulses beneath blush and bone". What a strong message about the observant eye of the poet, one that cannot be deceived by pretense, surface impressions wouldn't just cut it—the poet goes for the underlying, delicate truth of every situation. That's a purpose, defined. We cannot, therefore, be shocked when the persona tells us: "everyday, without fail, I must lick the divine". Not sniffing, not squinting at. Licking; that's how close the incisive eye of the poet gets to the "pulse".

In "Triptych", there are some little amazing lines like: "It's tragic, / how someone's pain can become chronic noise, a schick / you learn to tune out". This questions the feeling we call compassion, the length of time it can stay without burning itself out, given sometimes the weight it often is asked to carry on its shoulders. Surprisingly, it outlasts the burdens it faces, and life becomes possible again.

Some of the poems tell stories (the persona's life), sometimes they bury them (lost relatives, friends), but in both cases, what's confirmed or dodged is memory. In an effort to remember loss and pain, the persona of "Burying the Story" concludes, "people / do in fact change; you forgive, even forget; life does indeed go on." Notice how prosaic this sounds; yes, the whole piece straddles prose poem/flash fiction, and to tell you the truth, the poem's form paled in the face of the brutally realistic message. This volume reads like a book of memories, and as the persona remembers, we are forced to remember too, to remember love and loss in order to gain.

I like the piece entitled "Between", where I am told that "Shame is the chair the monkey sits in" by a persona who forgets, sometimes, that he is blind, and walks around "worshipping eggs and static". What frail reality, what vulnerability! But, remember, it's in this delicacy, and in the static, with all its inconveniences, that a form of truth might be hiding, as long as we remember what we were told in "Purpose".

You read the poems and you nod at the arrival of each little revelation, but along the way, you are slightly scared, what with the helplessness that our very humanity faces. One persona says his "guts [are] on the rotisserie of blame", another wants to know when "the hand of man" became "synonymous with destruction". Perhaps that happens every time the Minotaur seeks to feed on our ambition, as the persona of "History" tells us.

A strength, as well as an inspiration, in this poetry is the persona's willingness to strip himself of all sense of importance, that realization that in value there is also valuelessness, but that, okay, that does not really matter, you pursue your purpose nevertheless. The persona of the last poem, "Afterwards", even says: "After thirty years of arguing with ash, / I've finally befriended failure", and that the initial purpose, that strong goal statement in the first poem, has experienced collapse: "Finally, dear comrades, this leads nowhere."

But these are not poems of despair; otherwise we would all give up after experiencing Hamlet. There is a transformative power borne out of the many realizations to which each piece is a window. The greater awareness you get of what might have posed as obvious leads to a kind of change, a change for the better, if not by inspiration, then through the bits of understanding, the whiffs of wisdom the lines contain. If these poems will not capture you at first (because later they do), you will enjoy the unique, surreal imagery, and the story of one persona who has dreamed and dared to live.