WEALTH OF IDEAS

Batsirai E. Chigama is a Zimbabwean performance poet and short story writer. She has traveled extensively in Southern Africa performing at festivals, and her poetry has appeared in 5 poetry anthologies to date. In the following interview with fellow poet Tinashe Muchuri, Chigama talks about her art. Tinashe Muchuri: Do you have a work ethic as a poet? Batsirai Chigama: Read extensively, find time to critique myself before others do, keep writing. TM: Besides poetry writing and performing, what other special talent do you possess? BC: Give me an apron and good working oven any day: I love baking. TM: What is your source of inspiration? BC: Conversations with people, reading something or just silence—it has a way of speaking loudly to me. TM: In how many poetry anthologies does your poetry appear? BC: Five so far:   State of the Nation, Conversation Paperpress, UK, 2009 Whispers in the Whirlwind , Mensa Press, USA, 2010 Defiled Sacredness , Mensa Press, U...

Primrose Dzenga is a gifted poet, author and lifestyle coach born in Wedza, Zimbabwe, in 1982. Her debut biographical book The Unsung Heroine: Auxillia Chimusoro was published by Zimbabwe Women Writers in 2009. She has also published another poetry collection called Destiny in My Hands . Literary journalist Beaven Tapureta (BT) caught up with Primrose Dzenga (PD) to share her thoughts on life and writing. BT: Who is Primrose? PD: Primrose Dzenga is writer and poet born and raised in Wedza, and also lived in Chitungwiza. While writing has always been my life professionally I come from a background of accounts and banking. BT: Was writing The Unsung Heroine as much fun as it looked?  PD: It took me two years to research and write the book but two hours before the deadline for submitting the manuscript to the publishers I lost the file. I was not yet very good at saving documents on my laptop. The craziest thing is I rewrote the whole book in a week witho...

______________ Beaven Tapureta ______________ Guests mingling few minutes before the start of Marechera commemoration at the ZGS, Harare, March 13 (Photo: Zimbabwe/Germany Society) Following the publication of short personal narratives on the late Dambudzo Marechera’s love affair with his biographer Flora Veit-Wild (who authored the narratives) in the current issue of Wasafiri , a London-based journal for international contemporary writing, Marechera’s life has become a poser that will keep challenging even literary and cultural luminaries in new, interesting ways. The power of Marechera’s life story, which is inseparable from his texts, was clearly felt at his  commemoration held at the Zimbabwe-Germany Society, Harare, on the evening of March 13. The event, running under the theme “Re-visiting Dambudzo Marechera: Old Texts Brought to Life”, had a mixed-bag of panelists drawn from different fields in the literary sector and was moderated by Flora ...

1. On Sunday, I discovered this applocation called Spotify (which I told isn't new at all), which allows you to search for and listen to music (while you work, etc). A friend on facebook had listened to a song, and facebook had told me, so I followed the link, and with minutes I was listening to Zimbabwe's Leonard Dembo (while I worked). And I realized too that facebook was telling the world what I had listened to, which I didn't mind because I want the whole world to listen to what I listen to. Like much social media, Spotify doesn't charge for these products but it makes money on you, as well as your friends, being the its product, the fact that you are listening, and that you become part of the listening stastics. They play ads as well, which do not take much from your listening time. And why is this part of writing news? Because when I said I listened while working, I meant that I was writing, or editing, or sometimes just looking at what I had, or had not yet, wr...

Beaven Tapureta  David Mungoshi Harare, Zimbabwe : About twenty five writers, playwrights, and poets met at the British Council on Saturday, March 10, to discuss the relationship between music and their writing. Illustrious songwriter and musician Leonard Karikoga Zhakata, who was expected to grace the occasion, failed to attend as he was reportedly having a show in Bulawayo on the same day. In their presentations, writers David Mungoshi and Primrose Dzenga re-lived moments when their creative processes were largely influenced by music playing in the background. “I use music very often. Music puts me in a certain mood,” said Mungoshi who, as part of his presentation, played favourite songs from Leonard Cohen (Canadian musician), John Lenon, and Nina and Frederik. Mungoshi looked thoughtful, drifting away to some far place when he played “Because of” and “Dear Heather” by Cohen, echoing the stanza in “Because Of” which said, “They become naked/In their di...

A new women's web portal is to be launched on Tuesday, March 13.  The website www.herzimbabwe.co.zw , will be " dedicated to discussing and articulating Zimbabwean women’s issues and experiences," reveals Fungai Machirori, Founder and Managing Editor of the portal. “From my discussions with different Zimbabwean women, I have come to realise that many are struggling to find their space within society and to give voice to their many concerns,” observed Machirori. “In my view, these challenges have come about because Zimbabwean women have struggled to strike a balance between articulating and celebrating their individualism, while still retaining their collective cultural and social identities.” HerZimbabwe responds to that vacuum; it is a space where "women will be able to see their lives and stories reflected through those of other women." The portal will showcase personal perspectives, historical information, arts, lifestyle and hea...

Often, when I edit any piece of writing, whether it is mine, or, moreso, that of another writer, I find that much of the work that has been neglected is to do with how the writer failed to practise effective sentence control, that deliberate process where nothing is intrinsic, but where much, if not everything, depends on syntactic control, sometimes linguistic risk, that the writer is willing to unfurl. All sentences, especially ones like my introductory one here, can be controlled; the writer has to make choices about how to express ideas: don't let anyone tell you that we are controlled by the sentence, that the sentence is a gift that comes fully formed from some sentence storehouse...we craft these things, we make them work, we knit words, we replace them, we sequence elements of sentences, we pile segment upon segment of lexical and syntactic matter to create prosaic style and semantic sinews. So, on and on, we edit. There are moments when words, phrases, and c...

Presents Robert Bense, and Ann Conradsen Monday, March 12, 2012 at 7:30 PM 1719 25th Street at SPC Host: Emmanuel Sigauke Robert Bense grew up in southern Illinois on a farm, worked in business and taught at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania.   His work has appeared in many magazines, including Agni, Boulevard, Crazyhorse, Poetry , Salmagundi, Shenandoah and The New Republic .     A book of poems, Readings in Ordinary Time, was published by The Backwaters Press.   He now lives in Sacramento, California. Sample Poems Guarding Paradise   Cracked mirrors of the stars. Abyss of hand-cupped darknesses dithery like short wave. Messages between the Cyclopses and The Underworld intercepted. Broken glass of villa walls. Confinement to small talk after brevity of sex.   In the cities cardboard tenements of the lost. Trickle of urine and a pigeon. Shadowy men with holy griev...

Guest Blogger “ If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die." Duke Orsino TWELFTH NIGHT: Act 1, Scene 1. The two Nigerian literary spirits in London, UK, Ben Okri and Omohan Ebhodaghe have been likened to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 27 January 1756 - 5 December 1791 and Ludwig Van Beethoven, 17 December 1770 - 26 March 1827. Wolfgang was a prolific composer of over 600 works of the classical era while Ludwig carefully chose his works. Ben Okri ( 15 March, 1959 ) was born in Minna, Niger state of Nigeria to an Igbo mother and an Urhobo father called Grace and Silver Okri. He schooled at Urhobo college in Warri and later returned to England in 1978 for a study of comparative literature at the university of Essex. He did not complete his BA degree programme due to lack of finances. He later became poetry editor for the West Africa magazine as well as worked for the BBC. He was a vice-president...

I started this blog in August 2007, with the intention of just recording occasional thoughts which would eventually amount to what I imagined would be a wealth of ideas. Looking back, I can see that I have done more than just record some thoughts. I have covered a wide range of issues; I have joined debates about literature, and I have interviewed key contemporary African writers. Now, I am dreaming again. Dreaming of expansion, but in a more collaborative way. I am going to invite some bloggers, writers, journalists and poets to share this space, to share their ideas in a way consistent with the concept of a wealth of ideas. Very soon (most likely this week, on March 7), I am going to start an African radio hour which focuses on writers and writing. I will be drawing much of my information from blogosphere, and from interviewing the writers and some key readers of African literature. Wealth of Ideas will become a companion website of the radio program, either supplying some of the...

OUR LIFE STORIES, a cross-generational writers’ conference at Cosumnes River College will feature nationally-recognized writers Jennifer Basye Sander and Todd Walton on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at Cosumnes River College. Ethel Hart Senior Center 915 27th Street Sacramento, CA 95816 (916) 808-5462 Jennifer Basye Sander and Todd Walton will serve as keynote speakers for the fifth anniversary “Our Life Stories” writers’ conference Saturday, April 28 at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. The conference will focus on memoir writing. All aspiring writers are welcome. The conference includes lectures by Sander and Walton and several workshops moderated by celebrated authors from the Sacramento region, including non-fiction writers David Weinshilboum, Kerstin Feindert, and Kakwasi Somadhi, poets Kathryn Hohlwein, Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Emmanuel Siguake, and storyteller Valerie Fiorvanti. The all-day event, sponsored by the Hart Senior Center and CRC, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m...