WEALTH OF IDEAS

Title : "State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry" Publisher : Conversation Press (UK) Editors : Tinashe Mushakavanhu and David Nettleingham Reviewer : Memory Chirere When I received this book, ‘State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean poetry’, its very pointed title hinted that it is a project on Zimbabwe now as seen by its various poets. I know that the state of our beloved but beleaguered nation, Zimbabwe is now well known. Now a term ‘Zimbabwean crisis’ has even been spawned. Whatever way you look at it, the Zimbabwean crisis is characterized by serious food shortages, lack of jobs, rampant underpaying of civil servants, acute brain drain and the general collapse of public amenities. Definition(s) and causes of this crisis, in Zimbabwe, fall desperately and untidily too, between an oppositional view and the establishment/government view. A particular incident associated with the genesis of this crisis is the giving out of hefty gratuities to the liberation ...

This Thanksgiving I am thankful that I received my contributor copy of State of the Nation . It is a collection of thirty poets' works, edited by Tinashe Mushakavanhu and David Nettleingam. I haven't read all the poems, but I like how each poet was allowed to submit a short essay on craft or the process of writing. Mine, for instance, focused on my poetic journey, which, as you can imagine, tried to cover details about the many writing activities I was involved in growing up. It is an opportunity to get the writers to talk about their writing, something that most of us try to do in the wrong places...[like a friend just warned me against trying to talk about writing at the Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and I will comply]. I am not going to review this book, since I am in it, but check this blog next week for a review from Memory Chirere. Featuring his review here will be an honor. I can tell you that there are many good things about this book, especially the essays by Ignatius ...

State of the Nation: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry "Publishers in Zimbabwe have certainly failed poetry," writes Tinashe Mushakavanhu in his introduction to the new anthology of contemporary Zimbabwean poetry, State of the Nation. We can extend this further: publishers everywhere have failed poetry as they pursue profitable genres. And if in doing so they argue that they are trying to give readers what they want, then readers everywhere have failed poetry.... But here is a new anthology that will get many reading. It's the first collection I have seen that covers a cross-section of classic and contemporary Zimbabwean poets. I, for one, am honored to have my poems featured alongside Chenjerai Hove, Dambudzo Marechera, Charles Mungoshi, John Eppel, Nhamo Mhiripiri, Ignatius Mabasa, and many others. What's more, the collection features short personal essays, which in the words of co-editor David Nettleingham, tell the poets' stories "of personal experience, of...