Poetry Africa comes to Zim

Poetry Africa Festival, in its 14th year running, is an initiative by the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
The poetic voices, forms and cultures represented include the vivid verse of Frank Chipasula (Malawi), BBC Poetry Prize winner and twice Pushcart Prize-nominee who is also a widely-respected writer, academic and editor; Kenyan, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, a poet whose intelligence and subtlety is abundantly evident in her first book of poems, Blue Mothertongue, a collection which examines notions of home, loss and healing; Botswana poet and academic, Barolong Seboni, whose astute grasp of history and its meaning, is spread over numerous acclaimed collections; Charlotte Hill O’Neal, better known as Mama C, an American-born visual artiste, musician and poet, who was a member of the Black Panther Movement before relocating to Tanzania in 1972; and celebrated poet, author, radio host, actor and social critic, Mutabaruka, the first well-publicised voice in the new wave of Jamaican poets making themselves heard in the early 1970s, who has helped forge the unique genre of music commonly referred to as dub poetry.
The other two poets are South African established luminaries and exciting new voices: Pitika Ntuli, who combines a vast store of African mythology and history, a keen awareness of the contemporary and an astonishing ability to improvise in his evocative poetry; and Lebo Mashile, arguably the best-known contemporary South African poet, brings her candid and richly woven words.
The Tuesday evening performance at The Mannenberg will feature hot young music group, Chabvondoka, with the popular spoken word artiste, Comrade Fatso, and Tendayi Manatsa (guitar) and Josh Meck (bass). The explosive and controversial Comrade Fatso calls his art toyi-toyi.
Late in the day on Wednesday, the visiting poets will participate in an open public discussion “Poetry and Social Transformation” with local artistes and activists at The Book Café, followed by final performances in the evening alongside some of Zimbabwe’s most exciting poets, namely, Julius Chin-gono, Batsirai Chigama, Chirikure Chirikure, Free-dom Nyamubaya, Outsp-oken, and Musa Zimunya.
The group will also conduct a workshop for poets and participants from a programme by the cultural activists’ network, Magamba, in the high-density suburb of Highfields, to experience some of their grassroots activities.
The CCA says the two shows in Harare are part of a three-country tour of Poetry Africa in the region — starting in Zimbabwe, then to Blantyre, Malawi, on October 1 before culminating in the main Poetry Africa Festival in Durban from October 4 to 9. However, the tour kicks off at the Cape To-wn ICC this Sunday. “Poetry Africa on Tour is an effort to celebrate poetry with ever-wider constituencies and to stimulate meaningful cultural exchange between artists, audiences and countries,” says the CCA, one of the earliest initiators of African literary festivals.
The Harare visit is welcomed by the House of Hunger Poetry Slam, a project for the development and promotion of performance poetry, by local arts development organisation, Pamberi Trust, which hosts the events in partnership with Johannesburg-based sister organisation, African Synergy, under the African Tour Circuit project.
The House of Hunger Poetry Slam — named after the novel by one of Zimbabwe’s most revered poets and writers, the late Dambudzo Marechera — has grown steadily, providing an exciting platform for performance poetry which has also spread to other parts of the country, and is now reaching beyond our borders.