WEALTH OF IDEAS

Sometimes, reading is like the writing process: the reader revises responses to a work of art with each step of the reading process. When I started reading Valerie Tagwira's The Uncertainty of Hope , I quickly found discomfort in the transposition of Shona and English sentences since I thought this tendency served some interests of no immediate importance to the art of the novel, for example, serving an audience foreign to the issues and context of the novel. Reading "But thank you very much my friend. Ndatenda sahwira " (16) still bothers me, but I have also discovered that this aspect of the novel may not be as important by the end of the story as I thought it was at the beginning. I am, however, beginning to grow nervous with the abundance of images of pessimism that pervade the plot,and I worry that if the novel falls short in exposing the complexities of life in the Zimbabwe of 2005, it may excel only in showing the complications of the life. Right, art imitates lif

Something Like a Poem Good Times Santa Cruz - Sunday, 28 October 2007 © Good Times Santa Cruz In his essay, Gerber grips the reader's attention by exposing the feeling of an artist towards the art. One question that I am always asked as a poet is what my poetry is about, and like many poets before me, I do not have straight forward answer that pretends to know what my poetry is about. My poetry is like a discovery process, and I hope that the reader will discover the meaning just as I would as I read the poem after its production. And this is serious. I know I can control the craft of the poem, tweak lines, rhythm and other stylistic features, but I will let the poem clear its own ground. Sometimes the process is not about clearing ground at all, but maybe about forestation or a process I am beginning to understand as some form of "covering" or "layering". Often, when I write a poem about certain themes,I prefer the "covering/layering". I find some of

I have emptied Chisiya Echoes of its 400 poems created between February 2006 and October 2007. It's editing time, but new postings will resume in November.

Maxwell Mutami's poetry collection has just been published by Timeless Avatar Press and is available at Amazon and other places online. The publisher describes the collection as follows: "This book is a collection of poems that cover politics, culture, religion, and the economic life of the ordinary man. The themes tackled have made and are still making headlines in newspapers and magazines all over the world." I just ordered my copy and hope to feature a Maxwell Mutami interview in the next issue of Munyori Poetry Journal .

I look forward to attending this rich conference hosted by Sac State. Here I am posting the conference schedule to give readers an idea of the kinds of papers that are going to be presented by scholars from across the Unites States. Post-Genocide Rwanda: Achievements and Challenges Date & Venue : November 2-3, 2007 at Sacramento State University Organizers:  Pan-African Studies and Ethnic Studies at California State University,  The University of the Pacific, School of International Studies, o in collaboration with :  FORA (Friends of Rwanda Association). Thursday: November 1, 2007 5:00 PM-7:00 PM: Wine and Cheese Reception and Registration. 8391 Red Fox Way Elk Grove, California. Friday November 2, 2007 MORNING 9:00-10:50 Welcome and Keynote speech: Hinde Auditorium Genocide Negation: Its impact on National Unity and Reconciliation by James Kimonyo, Rwandan Ambassador to the United States 10:00 AM-12:30. Concurrent sessions Session 1: Law and Justice Timothy Gallimore, ICTR

A Doris Lessing reader approached me yesterday and asked, "I didn't know Doris Lessing sort of grew up in Zimbabwe." Not only did I confirm this, but I was also quick to recommend The Grass is Singing as a good book to read. I have always treated Doris Lessing as a Zimbabwean writer, although she left the country in 1949, and was prohibited from rentering it from 1956 to 1995. When it comes to conferring nationality to a writer, sometimes the work of the writer is a deciding factor. Reading The Grass is Singing does it for me - I have read that book just to experience how it captures the savanna terrain, which brings the message closer home.I find myself very ready to claim Lessing as clearly a Zimbabwean writer, and for this reason, I feel that a part of that Nobel has to do with Zimbabwe somehow. Either that, or I just want someone to say something positive about Zimbabwe right now. Congratulations, Doris Lessing!

I just received my copy of the Weaver Press-published novel, The Uncertainty of Hope. The first two chapters I have read present a promising plot. What I have begun to notice is the uncertainty of language in the novel. The characters use the Shona language once in a while, then each Shona sentence is usually followed by its English equivalent. That's a bit disturbing because it raises the issue of audience and how writing in English conflicts with the messages we are trying to convey. The writing becomes a bit journalistic, or anthropological, but then I say this because I spent those early UZ years arguing about African literature and the issue of language, and I am into revisionary Ngugism. I see what Tagwira is trying to do; I am just uncomfortable as I try to imagine what goes on in a writer's mind when he or she faces the challenge of satisfying a foreign audience while attempting to serve a local readership, which rarely reads, cannot afford to read. I see myself writing