Tinashe Mushakavanhu Reviews "Sunflowers in Your Eyes – Four Zimbabwean Poets"
YOUNG ZIMBABWEAN WOMEN POETS BREAK SILENCE Title: Sunflowers in Your Eyes – Four Zimbabwean Poets Editor: Menna Elfyn Publisher: Cinnamon Press ISBN: 978-1-907090-13-4 Year: 2010 Reviewed by Tinashe Mushakavanhu Zimbabwean poetry has been largely a choir of male voices. The absence of women is too visible in KZ Muchemwa’s Zimbabwean Poetry in English (1978), Musaemura Zimunya and Mudereri Kadhani’s And Now the Poets Speak (1982), Flora Veit-Wild’s Patterns of Poetry in Zimbabwean Poetry (1988) and more recently Jane Morris’ Intwasa Poetry (2008). The agenda of this book is to give women their voices as the editor Menna Elfyn outlines in her preface, ‘this book goes some way in redressing this imbalance.’ I read the book with so much relish. It is an empowering book in many ways. In poetry as well as in the other artistic fields, the Zimbabwean woman is often restricted to a subordinate role as a muse, confidant and comforter. This book brings a refreshing insight as the four poets – E...