{"id":474,"date":"2015-03-18T17:53:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T17:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrmushava.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/18\/locating-a-pitch-for-contemporary-poetry\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T07:46:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:46:52","slug":"locating-a-pitch-for-contemporary-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=474","title":{"rendered":"Locating a Pitch for Contemporary Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ignatius Mabasa (Photo Credit: The Herald)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Poetry has been long pigeonholed as a tradition past its prime. Impassioned obituaries are often directed at the genre whose mojo has vastly diminished in recent decades.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As far as reception is concerned, the observations cannot be written off alarmist not least because poetry no longer commands a significant following outside classes and poetry slams.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Publishers are disinvesting interest in single-author poetry anthologies, to double-exert themselves where their bread is assured, chiefly fiction and academic products.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I visited every stand during the recent book fairs in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare and took meticulous note of the freshly pressed titles.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It was sad to note that no one seems to lose sleep over the perpetuity of poetry and that the few exceptions are up against high stakes.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Whereas prose appears buoyant, poetry and drama are being annihilated from the library and the bookshop and evolving into exclusively performance genres.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Fewer people still tip-toe on a little hill with Keats, tour Chinyamatimbi with Chitepo, listen to ancient, dusky rivers with Hughes, drift in the mesmeric notes of nature with Wordsworth or savour Shona confections with Hamutyinei.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The monuments of courage, melodies of nature, complexities of love, fundamentals of faith, chronicles of dynasties gilded in poetry are apparently up for a terminal holocaust.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Publishers have shirked midwifery responsibilities where poetry is concerned because, as they succinctly put it, no one buys poetry anymore.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
They complain that even if they are to run new titles they will simply gather dust in the bookshops unless the examination board prescribes them as set-texts. Even so, schools are inclined to pick the prose alternatives.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Poetry is accused of being inaccessible. Friends with whom I have tried to share a few esteemed classics have gone economic on me with explanations about the scarcity of time.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And this is the challenge. No one seems to care except budding writers, a nostalgic minority and critics.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The affirmative action extended to other endangered domains such as indeginous\u00a0literature<\/span>\u00a0which being propped out of obscurity through policy should be a welcome impetus for poetry, but can it thaw public indifference?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Students who are supposed to know better show less concern for poetry outside the classroom than a toddler\u2019s interest in Aristotle, unless one fancies themselves a budding Shakespeare or an emerging doppelganger, Marechera-style.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
That, precisely, is the tragedy of poetry. As Salt Publishing advices, apparently to trim inordinate ambition, there more people who write people than who read it, and more read poetry than who buy it.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A necrological Newsweek article, \u201cPoetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care,\u201d makes the unsettling observation that while it is difficult to imagine a world without movies, plays, novels and music, a world without poems does not\u00a0 have to be imagined.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The tragedy is not so much a slackened workflow side but a coy audience. Poets preponderate over their audience, itself a cause for serious questions.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cBy the ’90s, it was all over. If you doubt this statement, consider that poetry is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it,\u201d the Newsweek staff notes.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cAnyone can write a bad poem. To appreciate a good one, though, takes knowledge and commitment. As a society, we lack this knowledge and commitment. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThey aren\u2019t willing to let the words wash over them like a wave, demanding instead for the meaning to flow clearly and quickly. They want narrative-driven forms, stand-alone art that doesn’t require an understanding of the larger context,\u201d the article points out.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Imagine a band outnumbering its audience by default rather than design \u2013 the pressure to register an impression and the consciousness of futility at once simmering as one tries to locate a pitch.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Such is the poet\u2019s lot in this web-captive age where the emphasis in on more rapid protocols, more accessible formats. To be or not to be, that is the terrain-altering question.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
One tendency is to defrock classical aesthetics for a more immediate deportment. For a rapport with the audience, poets distill their work of the faintest vestige of sophistication, even the sophistication that sophistication which has touches of genius and touches of durability.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The stubborn ones compose on defiant of oblivion, anticipating a posthumous change of taste. After all, Elizabeth Stein assigns a classification window by which poetry mellows with age and poets often receive their acclaim in graveside eulogies and tombstone inscriptions and posthumous acclamation.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThose who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical,\u201d Stein points out.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Stein notes that the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, a possible justification for poets to roam wild and free confident of a more sympathetic posterity.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It is not the historicity of a change of taste that is in question but the replicability, with culture apparently inclined towards a cyber-blast in which the mundane and the material reign supreme.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Tapping full beam for an enhanced audience, with the mindful of one\u2019s fixation with a belated cause, can be both a blessing and a curse.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It is a blessing because it saddles on the poet the need to assume a contemporary tenor to haul multitudes into one\u2019s corner, embracing new horizons.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
It is potentially a curse because trendy is seldom synonymous with durable. One can throw technically bald pieces for immediacy and accessibility audience but such an approach may not last the distance.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
This is not to cast aspersion on the viability of alternative podiums. Noted critic Memory Chirere correctly points out that for the past decade, the power of Shona has manifested itself more in music and performing poetry than in the written form.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A new generation of musicians is code-switching ghetto lingo, patois and vintage Shona for a pro-poor medium of expression with varying degrees of proficiency, from bubblegum rookies, which constitute the majority to rare poetic thoroughbreds notably Tocky Vibes.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
No one can gainsay the depth of such undertakings as Oliver Mtukudzi\u2019s \u201cZviuya Zviri Mberi,\u201d which even in the medium of music overshadows of many unpolished novices in the written word.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Ignatius Mabasa\u2019s gospoetry offering \u201cNyika Yapera Wrong Time\u201d is a good example of what can be done to give poetry another lease of life.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Poetry enthusiast Cinder asks pertinent questions: \u201cIt has been argued that artists such as John Lennon, Joni Mitchell and Don McLean were the real poets of their generation, and were paralleled with poets like Allan Ginsberg of the Beat Generation.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWhat if poetry isn’t dying? What if it’s just slowly evolving into brand new forms, just like us? What if our poetry is our music? Song lyrics are more often quoted by teens than any classical lyric.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u201cRegardless of whether or not a poem of the canon is timeless or period-specific, it would seem that most of the iPod’s generation\u2019s interest is in the world, and subsequently poetry of music. If these popular lyrics were written, or read, and not sung, would they still be popular?\u201d inquires Cinder.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
For me, poetry in its traditional form must be perpetuated its own sake, even in the face of bleak commercial prospects and anti-intellectual attitudes. What counts is to make the grade. Assigning the mantle of poetry on musicians while stifling obscure craftsmen amounts to cultural sacrilege.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
There still remains to contend with counter-poetic forces including, as identified by Joseph Salemi, commercialism and materialism, the triumph of the computer, the ubiquity of audiovisual entertainment, the adulation of data gadgets and the increasing inarticulateness of the general population.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
To prevail against these requires turning back the hands of time, hence the need for every poet to negotiate his or her way around increasing hurdles without compromising their grade.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ignatius Mabasa (Photo Credit: The Herald) Poetry has been long pigeonholed as a tradition past its prime. Impassioned obituaries are often directed at the genre whose mojo has vastly diminished in recent decades. As far as reception is concerned, the observations cannot be written off alarmist not least because poetry no longer commands a significant following outside classes and poetry slams. Publishers are disinvesting interest in single-author poetry anthologies, to double-exert themselves where their bread is assured, chiefly fiction and academic products. I visited every stand during the recent book fairs in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare and took meticulous note of the freshly pressed titles. It was sad to note that no one seems to lose sleep over the perpetuity of poetry and that the few exceptions are up against high stakes. Whereas prose appears buoyant, poetry and drama are being annihilated from the library and the bookshop and evolving into exclusively performance genres. Fewer people still tip-toe on a little hill with Keats, tour Chinyamatimbi with Chitepo, listen to ancient, dusky rivers with Hughes, drift in the mesmeric notes of nature with Wordsworth or savour Shona confections with Hamutyinei. The monuments of courage, melodies of nature, complexities of love, fundamentals of faith, chronicles of dynasties gilded in poetry are apparently up for a terminal holocaust. Publishers have shirked midwifery responsibilities where poetry is concerned because, as they succinctly put it, no one buys poetry anymore. They complain that even if they are to run new titles they will simply gather dust in the bookshops unless the examination board prescribes them as set-texts. Even so, schools are inclined to pick the prose alternatives. Poetry is accused of being inaccessible. Friends with whom I have tried to share a few esteemed classics have gone economic on me with explanations about the scarcity of time. And this is the challenge. No one seems to care except budding writers, a nostalgic minority and critics. The affirmative action extended to other endangered domains such as indeginous\u00a0literature\u00a0which being propped out of obscurity through policy should be a welcome impetus for poetry, but can it thaw public indifference? Students who are supposed to know better show less concern for poetry outside the classroom than a toddler\u2019s interest in Aristotle, unless one fancies themselves a budding Shakespeare or an emerging doppelganger, Marechera-style. That, precisely, is the tragedy of poetry. As Salt Publishing advices, apparently to trim inordinate ambition, there more people who write people than who read it, and more read poetry than who buy it. A necrological Newsweek article, \u201cPoetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care,\u201d makes the unsettling observation that while it is difficult to imagine a world without movies, plays, novels and music, a world without poems does not\u00a0 have to be imagined. The tragedy is not so much a slackened workflow side but a coy audience. Poets preponderate over their audience, itself a cause for serious questions. \u201cBy the ’90s, it was all over. If you doubt this statement, consider that poetry is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it,\u201d the Newsweek staff notes. \u201cAnyone can write a bad poem. To appreciate a good one, though, takes knowledge and commitment. As a society, we lack this knowledge and commitment. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold. \u201cThey aren\u2019t willing to let the words wash over them like a wave, demanding instead for the meaning to flow clearly and quickly. They want narrative-driven forms, stand-alone art that doesn’t require an understanding of the larger context,\u201d the article points out. Imagine a band outnumbering its audience by default rather than design \u2013 the pressure to register an impression and the consciousness of futility at once simmering as one tries to locate a pitch. Such is the poet\u2019s lot in this web-captive age where the emphasis in on more rapid protocols, more accessible formats. To be or not to be, that is the terrain-altering question. One tendency is to defrock classical aesthetics for a more immediate deportment. For a rapport with the audience, poets distill their work of the faintest vestige of sophistication, even the sophistication that sophistication which has touches of genius and touches of durability. The stubborn ones compose on defiant of oblivion, anticipating a posthumous change of taste. After all, Elizabeth Stein assigns a classification window by which poetry mellows with age and poets often receive their acclaim in graveside eulogies and tombstone inscriptions and posthumous acclamation. \u201cThose who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical,\u201d Stein points out. Stein notes that the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, a possible justification for poets to roam wild and free confident of a more sympathetic posterity. It is not the historicity of a change of taste that is in question but the replicability, with culture apparently inclined towards a cyber-blast in which the mundane and the material reign supreme. Tapping full beam for an enhanced audience, with the mindful of one\u2019s fixation with a belated cause, can be both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it saddles on the poet the need to assume a contemporary tenor to haul multitudes into one\u2019s corner, embracing new horizons. It is potentially a curse because trendy is seldom synonymous with durable. One can throw technically bald pieces for immediacy and accessibility audience but such an approach may not last the distance. This is not to cast aspersion on the viability of alternative podiums. Noted critic Memory Chirere correctly points out that for the past decade, the power of Shona has manifested itself more in music and performing poetry than in the written form. A new generation of musicians<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nLocating a Pitch for Contemporary Poetry | Blockspace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=474\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Locating a Pitch for Contemporary Poetry | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ignatius Mabasa (Photo Credit: The Herald) Poetry has been long pigeonholed as a tradition past its prime. Impassioned obituaries are often directed at the genre whose mojo has vastly diminished in recent decades. As far as reception is concerned, the observations cannot be written off alarmist not least because poetry no longer commands a significant following outside classes and poetry slams. Publishers are disinvesting interest in single-author poetry anthologies, to double-exert themselves where their bread is assured, chiefly fiction and academic products. I visited every stand during the recent book fairs in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare and took meticulous note of the freshly pressed titles. It was sad to note that no one seems to lose sleep over the perpetuity of poetry and that the few exceptions are up against high stakes. Whereas prose appears buoyant, poetry and drama are being annihilated from the library and the bookshop and evolving into exclusively performance genres. Fewer people still tip-toe on a little hill with Keats, tour Chinyamatimbi with Chitepo, listen to ancient, dusky rivers with Hughes, drift in the mesmeric notes of nature with Wordsworth or savour Shona confections with Hamutyinei. The monuments of courage, melodies of nature, complexities of love, fundamentals of faith, chronicles of dynasties gilded in poetry are apparently up for a terminal holocaust. Publishers have shirked midwifery responsibilities where poetry is concerned because, as they succinctly put it, no one buys poetry anymore. They complain that even if they are to run new titles they will simply gather dust in the bookshops unless the examination board prescribes them as set-texts. Even so, schools are inclined to pick the prose alternatives. Poetry is accused of being inaccessible. Friends with whom I have tried to share a few esteemed classics have gone economic on me with explanations about the scarcity of time. And this is the challenge. No one seems to care except budding writers, a nostalgic minority and critics. The affirmative action extended to other endangered domains such as indeginous\u00a0literature\u00a0which being propped out of obscurity through policy should be a welcome impetus for poetry, but can it thaw public indifference? Students who are supposed to know better show less concern for poetry outside the classroom than a toddler\u2019s interest in Aristotle, unless one fancies themselves a budding Shakespeare or an emerging doppelganger, Marechera-style. That, precisely, is the tragedy of poetry. As Salt Publishing advices, apparently to trim inordinate ambition, there more people who write people than who read it, and more read poetry than who buy it. A necrological Newsweek article, \u201cPoetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care,\u201d makes the unsettling observation that while it is difficult to imagine a world without movies, plays, novels and music, a world without poems does not\u00a0 have to be imagined. The tragedy is not so much a slackened workflow side but a coy audience. Poets preponderate over their audience, itself a cause for serious questions. \u201cBy the ’90s, it was all over. If you doubt this statement, consider that poetry is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it,\u201d the Newsweek staff notes. \u201cAnyone can write a bad poem. To appreciate a good one, though, takes knowledge and commitment. As a society, we lack this knowledge and commitment. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold. \u201cThey aren\u2019t willing to let the words wash over them like a wave, demanding instead for the meaning to flow clearly and quickly. They want narrative-driven forms, stand-alone art that doesn’t require an understanding of the larger context,\u201d the article points out. Imagine a band outnumbering its audience by default rather than design \u2013 the pressure to register an impression and the consciousness of futility at once simmering as one tries to locate a pitch. Such is the poet\u2019s lot in this web-captive age where the emphasis in on more rapid protocols, more accessible formats. To be or not to be, that is the terrain-altering question. One tendency is to defrock classical aesthetics for a more immediate deportment. For a rapport with the audience, poets distill their work of the faintest vestige of sophistication, even the sophistication that sophistication which has touches of genius and touches of durability. The stubborn ones compose on defiant of oblivion, anticipating a posthumous change of taste. After all, Elizabeth Stein assigns a classification window by which poetry mellows with age and poets often receive their acclaim in graveside eulogies and tombstone inscriptions and posthumous acclamation. \u201cThose who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical,\u201d Stein points out. Stein notes that the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, a possible justification for poets to roam wild and free confident of a more sympathetic posterity. It is not the historicity of a change of taste that is in question but the replicability, with culture apparently inclined towards a cyber-blast in which the mundane and the material reign supreme. Tapping full beam for an enhanced audience, with the mindful of one\u2019s fixation with a belated cause, can be both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it saddles on the poet the need to assume a contemporary tenor to haul multitudes into one\u2019s corner, embracing new horizons. It is potentially a curse because trendy is seldom synonymous with durable. One can throw technically bald pieces for immediacy and accessibility audience but such an approach may not last the distance. This is not to cast aspersion on the viability of alternative podiums. Noted critic Memory Chirere correctly points out that for the past decade, the power of Shona has manifested itself more in music and performing poetry than in the written form. A new generation of musicians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=474\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-18T17:53:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-26T07:46:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.herald.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IGNATIOUS-MABASA.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"hardsouth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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Impassioned obituaries are often directed at the genre whose mojo has vastly diminished in recent decades. As far as reception is concerned, the observations cannot be written off alarmist not least because poetry no longer commands a significant following outside classes and poetry slams. Publishers are disinvesting interest in single-author poetry anthologies, to double-exert themselves where their bread is assured, chiefly fiction and academic products. I visited every stand during the recent book fairs in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare and took meticulous note of the freshly pressed titles. It was sad to note that no one seems to lose sleep over the perpetuity of poetry and that the few exceptions are up against high stakes. Whereas prose appears buoyant, poetry and drama are being annihilated from the library and the bookshop and evolving into exclusively performance genres. Fewer people still tip-toe on a little hill with Keats, tour Chinyamatimbi with Chitepo, listen to ancient, dusky rivers with Hughes, drift in the mesmeric notes of nature with Wordsworth or savour Shona confections with Hamutyinei. The monuments of courage, melodies of nature, complexities of love, fundamentals of faith, chronicles of dynasties gilded in poetry are apparently up for a terminal holocaust. Publishers have shirked midwifery responsibilities where poetry is concerned because, as they succinctly put it, no one buys poetry anymore. They complain that even if they are to run new titles they will simply gather dust in the bookshops unless the examination board prescribes them as set-texts. Even so, schools are inclined to pick the prose alternatives. Poetry is accused of being inaccessible. Friends with whom I have tried to share a few esteemed classics have gone economic on me with explanations about the scarcity of time. And this is the challenge. No one seems to care except budding writers, a nostalgic minority and critics. The affirmative action extended to other endangered domains such as indeginous\u00a0literature\u00a0which being propped out of obscurity through policy should be a welcome impetus for poetry, but can it thaw public indifference? Students who are supposed to know better show less concern for poetry outside the classroom than a toddler\u2019s interest in Aristotle, unless one fancies themselves a budding Shakespeare or an emerging doppelganger, Marechera-style. That, precisely, is the tragedy of poetry. As Salt Publishing advices, apparently to trim inordinate ambition, there more people who write people than who read it, and more read poetry than who buy it. A necrological Newsweek article, \u201cPoetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care,\u201d makes the unsettling observation that while it is difficult to imagine a world without movies, plays, novels and music, a world without poems does not\u00a0 have to be imagined. The tragedy is not so much a slackened workflow side but a coy audience. Poets preponderate over their audience, itself a cause for serious questions. \u201cBy the ’90s, it was all over. If you doubt this statement, consider that poetry is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it,\u201d the Newsweek staff notes. \u201cAnyone can write a bad poem. To appreciate a good one, though, takes knowledge and commitment. As a society, we lack this knowledge and commitment. People don’t possess the patience to read a poem 20 times before the sound and sense of it takes hold. \u201cThey aren\u2019t willing to let the words wash over them like a wave, demanding instead for the meaning to flow clearly and quickly. They want narrative-driven forms, stand-alone art that doesn’t require an understanding of the larger context,\u201d the article points out. Imagine a band outnumbering its audience by default rather than design \u2013 the pressure to register an impression and the consciousness of futility at once simmering as one tries to locate a pitch. Such is the poet\u2019s lot in this web-captive age where the emphasis in on more rapid protocols, more accessible formats. To be or not to be, that is the terrain-altering question. One tendency is to defrock classical aesthetics for a more immediate deportment. For a rapport with the audience, poets distill their work of the faintest vestige of sophistication, even the sophistication that sophistication which has touches of genius and touches of durability. The stubborn ones compose on defiant of oblivion, anticipating a posthumous change of taste. After all, Elizabeth Stein assigns a classification window by which poetry mellows with age and poets often receive their acclaim in graveside eulogies and tombstone inscriptions and posthumous acclamation. \u201cThose who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical,\u201d Stein points out. Stein notes that the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, a possible justification for poets to roam wild and free confident of a more sympathetic posterity. It is not the historicity of a change of taste that is in question but the replicability, with culture apparently inclined towards a cyber-blast in which the mundane and the material reign supreme. Tapping full beam for an enhanced audience, with the mindful of one\u2019s fixation with a belated cause, can be both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it saddles on the poet the need to assume a contemporary tenor to haul multitudes into one\u2019s corner, embracing new horizons. It is potentially a curse because trendy is seldom synonymous with durable. One can throw technically bald pieces for immediacy and accessibility audience but such an approach may not last the distance. This is not to cast aspersion on the viability of alternative podiums. Noted critic Memory Chirere correctly points out that for the past decade, the power of Shona has manifested itself more in music and performing poetry than in the written form. 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