WEALTH OF IDEAS

 A new Zimbabwean online journal has just been launched. This journal is the first of many planned initiatives by the Zimbabwe Poetry Society, a new organization that brings together Zimbabwean poets at home and abroad.  The journal's mission is "to  make Zimbabwean poetry more visible and accessible locally and around the world and to make an impactful contribution to the global community of poets."  Ipikai Poetry Journal plans to publish one issue every quarter. Visit their   submissions  page for more information. There you will see detailed instructions on how to submit. 

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...

Title : Together Authors : John Eppel and Julius Chingono. Publisher : UNO Press (USA) Date : 2011 Reviewed by Emmanuel Sigauke One question I remember asking in the late eighties and early nineties in Zimbabwe is: Where are all the white writers? I could easily have concluded that Zimbabwe had no white writers, or that white Zimbabweans could not write. But I remembered that when I started school in the 70s, before Zimbabwe's independence, I had read stories and poems by white writers in school. So, as works by black writers flourished in the eighties, what was happening to works by white writers? John Eppel hints at  one of the many possible answers in a short essay in the poetry collection, 'State of the Nation': "None of the Zimbabwean presses would publish me; none of the South African presses. Influential academics (and editors) of anthologies, not only at home but in those countries starched with political correctness like post-independent South ...

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...

Ignatius Mabasa at the Western Addition Libray in downtown San Francisco. This has got to be one of the best poetry events in the United States, its magnitude and the display of international talent. Listening to the poets read in their languages, you could tell that they had to be some of the best in their countries. Syrian poet Maram al-Massri who read with Mabasa. Of course, there was one of Zimbabwe's best poets, Ignatius Mabasa, who read in Shona. I caught him in action at an event that featured him and the Syrian poet Maram al-Massri. It was a wonderful reading. Each poem was read twice, first in Shona, then in English. Mabasa was paired with San Francisco poet Michael Warr, who read the English versions of the poems. Of course, I sat there laughing long before anyone else in the room understood what was happening. It felt like an honor for my family to be the only people in the audience who understood what the poet was saying in Shona; then I laughed again (there is humor...

photo by Fungai J.T. Listen, I am too excited about this news to know where to begin, but let's start with this announcement from the organizers of the Second San Francisco International Poetry Festival: Second San Francisco International Poetry Festival will Ring through the City in July 23-27, 2009 Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Jack Hirschman and the San Francisco Public Library will present the second San Francisco International Poetry Festival, July 23-27, 2009. The festival will take place at the Palace of Fine Arts and various venues and libraries throughout San Francisco. The Festival honors our City’s great legacy of hosting and encouraging cross cultural dialogue. In 2007, the three-day extravaganza drew thousands of people from the Bay Area for free and open-to-the-public poetry and music at both large and small venues throughout the City, including a street party in North Beach, youth events, book signings, translation workshops an...