issue 23: monsoon 2021

Editorial

Almost Island has published the singular and accomplished work of Zimbabwean poet Togara Muzanenhamo over the past decade. He has also been a guest at the Almost Island Dialogues in 2019. For this issue we invited him to give us a glimpse of some contemporary poets from his country.

— Sharmistha Mohanty

Over the past two decades there has been a marked shift in Zimbabwean poetry – a change in the use of language, particularly in the freedoms of language and form. Before the turn of the century – the previous generation of poets were primarily influenced by the language of various American and English poets – but they were also influenced by a handful of African poets writing with the same colonial concerns. Within the poems of Musaemura Zimunya, Charles Mungoshi, Julius Chingono, Chengerai Hove and Dambudzo Marechera - one can hear the echoes of many poets - from Charles Bukowski, to William Wordsworth to Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor.

The poets from the previous generation were the products and by-products of a violent war for freedom from colonization and racial domination, and these poets fought the ordeals of oppression with words of protest – some also painted nostalgic images of a precolonial era, while others wrote with rage about the restrictions of their basic human rights. It was an age of the poet being the voice of the people – an age when one voice was heard by many from the silent pages of a book or magazine. The majority of this generation of Zimbabwean poets were still angry and frustrated once the war came to an end. Once Zimbabwe gained

independence, there was a period of elation that lasted almost a decade, but then that bright promise dimmed behind the clouds and the sky became darker and heavier as the years went on. As the new millennium approached – things worsened and the economy collapsed due to a period of increased political turmoil. Some of the poets who protested against the previous colonial regime were now writing in protest against a new government that they felt was failing them.The poets believed that Zimbabwe’s independence had ushered in a remodeled scheme of an old system they had fought against and, as a result, there was a surge in protest poetry.

At the turn of the century the social and economic meltdown saw a great number of Zimbabweans flee the country, creating pockets of diaspora communities around the world. The poets who lived abroad became influenced by the cultures they were surrounded by. The Diaspora poets looked back on their homeland with a different gaze from the poets who were and are still living within Zimbabwe. The new voices that emerged from within Zimbabwe were rooted in the struggles of their predecessors who wrote protest poetry against the

regime. The new millennium has also seen an increase in prominent female poets.

In this issue, I wanted to feature the younger generation of Zimbabwean poets. This younger generation is different in style and use of language. In some poems there are elements of the oral performance tradition – this coming about because most of Zimbabwe’s literary presses who published poetry have shut down, and as a result of this, performance poetry has become one of the ways in which a poet can express themselves. But there are also poems that are intentionally written for the page.

The poets presented here express themselves with introspective and extroverted artistic worth and all write with a gaze on the country’s evolution. Five of the poets live permanently in Zimbabwe, but another textured feeling of the country is also provided by the outer-eye of the two who live abroad. As one generation of writers passes on to the next – the music of their words is something that pleases me greatly to share.

– Togara Muzanenhamo