{"id":509,"date":"2014-06-15T07:24:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T07:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrmushava.wordpress.com\/2014\/06\/15\/internet-friend-or-foe-of-creative-writing\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T08:53:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T08:53:59","slug":"internet-friend-or-foe-of-creative-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509","title":{"rendered":"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Arnold “So Profound” Chirimika<\/span><\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\u201cThe poetry of the earth is never dead.\u201d When John Keats, absorbed in the mesmeric notes of nature, made this observation, he had certainly not foreseen the love-hate relationship of the Internet and creative writing.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
130 years on, literature is still alive and viral, not so much through the hedge choruses Keats referenced in his sonnet, as through virtual libraries, author pages, online writers\u2019 guilds and share buttons.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The proliferation of digital tools and instant communication protocols has, for better and for worse, vastly altered the production and reception of literature in the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
However, we can at least agree that literature has outlived the Web 2.0 sell-by date stamped on it by digital migration to make use of the very space that threatened its existence. Poetic justice, if you like. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
If Shakespeare was to be conjured back to the living for a moment, I guess he would dash home straightaway to see how much of his unpublished scrolls and parchments are still intact.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Before he arrives, he might be surprised to see fellow passengers hunched over WhatsApp-able tablets, exchanging quotes from his plays.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
After coming to terms with how much reading patterns have changed since 1620, Shakespeare might as well shrug, coin a new quote and say: \u201cA rose in any other vase still smells as sweet.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Whether Galileo Galilei or Mark Zuckerberg performs the midwifery rites is neither here nor there. The potency, durability and infectiousness of art will fling its mojo from any medium. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mediums will change with the lapse of times but good literature, chiseled after the shape of the heart, will withstand the wear of centuries and bug ages to come with the same emotive facility.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The notion that the writing is \u201con the wall\u201d for literature, as much as it is intended for an obituary, can well be read to signify how literature is now patent on the social network.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Such are the double meanings underlying the art of our day. The equivocal tenor of digitisation ushers Literature Today to the question:\u00a0 Is the Internet a friend or foe of literature?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I will readily argue that if Internet is a disservice instead of a benefactor to literature, then the problem is that our own book sector is either underutilising or underestimating the Internet at its own peril.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As I once pointed out, water is an apt metaphor for the Internet: just as the liquid has no shape of its own but assumes the shape of any container, the Internet has no immanent character but merely responds to user instructions.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A deterministic of reading of the Internet \u2013 the impression that man, the artist in this case, is at the mercy of technology \u2013 is haywire. Writers and publishers can direct the Internet to their own interests.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Prolific writer Aaron Chiundura-Moyo says as much as the transition from primitive to modern weapons has enhanced warfare, if gun control was not in place, trigger-happy gun-totters would have made the human race extinct by now.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Likewise, Moyo argues that even if technology presents negative possibilities like piracy, institutions of authority can still monitor its use to guarantee optimal returns.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The Internet is not an invincible behemoth we have made it out to be. It is, rather, an underutilised field of opportunities. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Literary critic Prof George Kahari is of the view that Zimbabwean literature has actually improved but its transmission has been knocked hard by an austere economy.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThe majority of Zimbabweans are poor and would rather buy mealie-meal than buy a novel,\u201d Kahari says.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cPublishers can only publish what they can sell. And it turns out that libraries and schools are no longer buying much as they used to.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThere will come a time when the adoption of electronic publishing in Zimbabwe will reawaken interest in literature. Even those old texts people seem to have forgotten about will come back again. It has happened in other countries and it can also happen here,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Media commentator Phillip Santos says that writers and publishers find themselves losing out to piracy is because they are doing business as usual, which keeps them several steps behind current trends and outside contemporary practices<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
He says that the runaway digitalisation of all socio-economic, creative and political activities has prompted migration to digital platforms across the horizon, hence the need for the book sector to acclimatise. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cLiterature, whose own existential trajectory can be traced back to as far as history cares to remember, is now forced to incorporate modern technological interventions throughout the workflow process,\u201d Santos says.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThe conceptualisation, writing, editing, packaging, distribution and consumption of literary works is now likely to be laced around digital devices. It is necessary that writers, publishers and distributors approach their work with this reality in mind,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
While our terminally technophobic traditional institutions are failing to take charge of the information war and restore the glamour of the book sector, I have watched with interest how Zimbabwean poets, in particular, are staking their claim to relevance in a prohibiting environment.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Publishers are, by and large, no longer handling poetry, except for occasional multi-authored anthologies. According to Salt Publishing, there are more people who write poetry than who read it and more people who read poetry than those who buy it.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As such, publishers, who are understandably profit-driven, now habitually slam their doors in the faces of new poets.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Young poets are, however, breaking the muzzle through the adoption of alternative media, Spoken word poetry is all the rage, particularly in Harare, with exponents like Mutumwapavi (Tinashe Muchuri), So Profound (Arnold Chirimika), Mbizo Chirasha, Tendai Maduwa and many others.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Unlike their published predecessors, this new breed is techno-savvy and boasts a remarkable web-presence. As such, they remain unassailed, but rather ferried farther and wider, by the digital tide.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Chirasha, for example, has 24 notable festival performances and at least 60 journal appearances in countries including Mexico, Canada, Namibia, Ghana, UK, Australia and Sudan \u2013 a feat few, if any, of the mainstream writers can boast.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
One of the success stories of poetry slams, So Profound, happens to be my two-time schoolmate and I remember lamenting the endangered viability of the book sector in one of our many discussions on literature.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Had he absorbed my defeatism and not considered trending avenues, he would not be the force that he is today. The eloquent young wordsmith is, however, growing from strength to strength, with ever-creative initiatives like his forthcoming \u201cIn Word, In Song\u201d concert with Adiona Chidzonga.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
An honourable mention goes to the Facebook page \u201c263 Nhetembo,\u201d administered Rabison Shumba, with prolific contributors like Edwin Msipa, Sharon Macheka, Rodwell Harinangoni and many others.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
With acres of space to let at a nominal price on the Internet, it is no longer be worthwhile to take Ignatius Mabasa\u2019s petition \u201ctipeiwo dariro tizunzewo dzedu inda (give us the podium to strut of our stuff)\u201d to publishers before one can claim initiation into Pegasus-land.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I now summon T.S Eliot to forestall objections from would-be protectionists who are wont to draw halos around their own stoical tastes and dismiss young artists as an anathema from tradition.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Eliot says to see literature steadily and as a whole involves eminently, seeing it \u201cnot as consecrated by time, but to see it beyond time; to see the best work of our time and the best work of twenty-five hundred years ago with the same eyes.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
I believe in this sprawling activity, on the web and the beat-boxing podium, notable voices of our time will emerge and plug the gap left by our stagnating traditional book value chain.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arnold “So Profound” Chirimika \u201cThe poetry of the earth is never dead.\u201d When John Keats, absorbed in the mesmeric notes of nature, made this observation, he had certainly not foreseen the love-hate relationship of the Internet and creative writing. 130 years on, literature is still alive and viral, not so much through the hedge choruses Keats referenced in his sonnet, as through virtual libraries, author pages, online writers\u2019 guilds and share buttons. The proliferation of digital tools and instant communication protocols has, for better and for worse, vastly altered the production and reception of literature in the 21st century. However, we can at least agree that literature has outlived the Web 2.0 sell-by date stamped on it by digital migration to make use of the very space that threatened its existence. Poetic justice, if you like. If Shakespeare was to be conjured back to the living for a moment, I guess he would dash home straightaway to see how much of his unpublished scrolls and parchments are still intact. Before he arrives, he might be surprised to see fellow passengers hunched over WhatsApp-able tablets, exchanging quotes from his plays. After coming to terms with how much reading patterns have changed since 1620, Shakespeare might as well shrug, coin a new quote and say: \u201cA rose in any other vase still smells as sweet.\u201d Whether Galileo Galilei or Mark Zuckerberg performs the midwifery rites is neither here nor there. The potency, durability and infectiousness of art will fling its mojo from any medium. Mediums will change with the lapse of times but good literature, chiseled after the shape of the heart, will withstand the wear of centuries and bug ages to come with the same emotive facility. The notion that the writing is \u201con the wall\u201d for literature, as much as it is intended for an obituary, can well be read to signify how literature is now patent on the social network. Such are the double meanings underlying the art of our day. The equivocal tenor of digitisation ushers Literature Today to the question:\u00a0 Is the Internet a friend or foe of literature? I will readily argue that if Internet is a disservice instead of a benefactor to literature, then the problem is that our own book sector is either underutilising or underestimating the Internet at its own peril. As I once pointed out, water is an apt metaphor for the Internet: just as the liquid has no shape of its own but assumes the shape of any container, the Internet has no immanent character but merely responds to user instructions. A deterministic of reading of the Internet \u2013 the impression that man, the artist in this case, is at the mercy of technology \u2013 is haywire. Writers and publishers can direct the Internet to their own interests. Prolific writer Aaron Chiundura-Moyo says as much as the transition from primitive to modern weapons has enhanced warfare, if gun control was not in place, trigger-happy gun-totters would have made the human race extinct by now. Likewise, Moyo argues that even if technology presents negative possibilities like piracy, institutions of authority can still monitor its use to guarantee optimal returns. The Internet is not an invincible behemoth we have made it out to be. It is, rather, an underutilised field of opportunities. Literary critic Prof George Kahari is of the view that Zimbabwean literature has actually improved but its transmission has been knocked hard by an austere economy. \u201cThe majority of Zimbabweans are poor and would rather buy mealie-meal than buy a novel,\u201d Kahari says. \u201cPublishers can only publish what they can sell. And it turns out that libraries and schools are no longer buying much as they used to. \u201cThere will come a time when the adoption of electronic publishing in Zimbabwe will reawaken interest in literature. Even those old texts people seem to have forgotten about will come back again. It has happened in other countries and it can also happen here,\u201d he says. Media commentator Phillip Santos says that writers and publishers find themselves losing out to piracy is because they are doing business as usual, which keeps them several steps behind current trends and outside contemporary practices He says that the runaway digitalisation of all socio-economic, creative and political activities has prompted migration to digital platforms across the horizon, hence the need for the book sector to acclimatise. \u201cLiterature, whose own existential trajectory can be traced back to as far as history cares to remember, is now forced to incorporate modern technological interventions throughout the workflow process,\u201d Santos says. \u201cThe conceptualisation, writing, editing, packaging, distribution and consumption of literary works is now likely to be laced around digital devices. It is necessary that writers, publishers and distributors approach their work with this reality in mind,\u201d he says. While our terminally technophobic traditional institutions are failing to take charge of the information war and restore the glamour of the book sector, I have watched with interest how Zimbabwean poets, in particular, are staking their claim to relevance in a prohibiting environment. Publishers are, by and large, no longer handling poetry, except for occasional multi-authored anthologies. According to Salt Publishing, there are more people who write poetry than who read it and more people who read poetry than those who buy it. As such, publishers, who are understandably profit-driven, now habitually slam their doors in the faces of new poets. Young poets are, however, breaking the muzzle through the adoption of alternative media, Spoken word poetry is all the rage, particularly in Harare, with exponents like Mutumwapavi (Tinashe Muchuri), So Profound (Arnold Chirimika), Mbizo Chirasha, Tendai Maduwa and many others. Unlike their published predecessors, this new breed is techno-savvy and boasts a remarkable web-presence. As such, they remain unassailed, but rather ferried farther and wider, by the digital tide. Chirasha, for example, has 24 notable festival performances and at least 60 journal appearances in countries including Mexico, Canada, Namibia, Ghana, UK, Australia and Sudan \u2013 a feat few, if any,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"\nInternet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing? | 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=509\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing? | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arnold “So Profound” Chirimika \u201cThe poetry of the earth is never dead.\u201d When John Keats, absorbed in the mesmeric notes of nature, made this observation, he had certainly not foreseen the love-hate relationship of the Internet and creative writing. 130 years on, literature is still alive and viral, not so much through the hedge choruses Keats referenced in his sonnet, as through virtual libraries, author pages, online writers\u2019 guilds and share buttons. The proliferation of digital tools and instant communication protocols has, for better and for worse, vastly altered the production and reception of literature in the 21st century. However, we can at least agree that literature has outlived the Web 2.0 sell-by date stamped on it by digital migration to make use of the very space that threatened its existence. Poetic justice, if you like. If Shakespeare was to be conjured back to the living for a moment, I guess he would dash home straightaway to see how much of his unpublished scrolls and parchments are still intact. Before he arrives, he might be surprised to see fellow passengers hunched over WhatsApp-able tablets, exchanging quotes from his plays. After coming to terms with how much reading patterns have changed since 1620, Shakespeare might as well shrug, coin a new quote and say: \u201cA rose in any other vase still smells as sweet.\u201d Whether Galileo Galilei or Mark Zuckerberg performs the midwifery rites is neither here nor there. The potency, durability and infectiousness of art will fling its mojo from any medium. Mediums will change with the lapse of times but good literature, chiseled after the shape of the heart, will withstand the wear of centuries and bug ages to come with the same emotive facility. The notion that the writing is \u201con the wall\u201d for literature, as much as it is intended for an obituary, can well be read to signify how literature is now patent on the social network. Such are the double meanings underlying the art of our day. The equivocal tenor of digitisation ushers Literature Today to the question:\u00a0 Is the Internet a friend or foe of literature? I will readily argue that if Internet is a disservice instead of a benefactor to literature, then the problem is that our own book sector is either underutilising or underestimating the Internet at its own peril. As I once pointed out, water is an apt metaphor for the Internet: just as the liquid has no shape of its own but assumes the shape of any container, the Internet has no immanent character but merely responds to user instructions. A deterministic of reading of the Internet \u2013 the impression that man, the artist in this case, is at the mercy of technology \u2013 is haywire. Writers and publishers can direct the Internet to their own interests. Prolific writer Aaron Chiundura-Moyo says as much as the transition from primitive to modern weapons has enhanced warfare, if gun control was not in place, trigger-happy gun-totters would have made the human race extinct by now. Likewise, Moyo argues that even if technology presents negative possibilities like piracy, institutions of authority can still monitor its use to guarantee optimal returns. The Internet is not an invincible behemoth we have made it out to be. It is, rather, an underutilised field of opportunities. Literary critic Prof George Kahari is of the view that Zimbabwean literature has actually improved but its transmission has been knocked hard by an austere economy. \u201cThe majority of Zimbabweans are poor and would rather buy mealie-meal than buy a novel,\u201d Kahari says. \u201cPublishers can only publish what they can sell. And it turns out that libraries and schools are no longer buying much as they used to. \u201cThere will come a time when the adoption of electronic publishing in Zimbabwe will reawaken interest in literature. Even those old texts people seem to have forgotten about will come back again. It has happened in other countries and it can also happen here,\u201d he says. Media commentator Phillip Santos says that writers and publishers find themselves losing out to piracy is because they are doing business as usual, which keeps them several steps behind current trends and outside contemporary practices He says that the runaway digitalisation of all socio-economic, creative and political activities has prompted migration to digital platforms across the horizon, hence the need for the book sector to acclimatise. \u201cLiterature, whose own existential trajectory can be traced back to as far as history cares to remember, is now forced to incorporate modern technological interventions throughout the workflow process,\u201d Santos says. \u201cThe conceptualisation, writing, editing, packaging, distribution and consumption of literary works is now likely to be laced around digital devices. It is necessary that writers, publishers and distributors approach their work with this reality in mind,\u201d he says. While our terminally technophobic traditional institutions are failing to take charge of the information war and restore the glamour of the book sector, I have watched with interest how Zimbabwean poets, in particular, are staking their claim to relevance in a prohibiting environment. Publishers are, by and large, no longer handling poetry, except for occasional multi-authored anthologies. According to Salt Publishing, there are more people who write poetry than who read it and more people who read poetry than those who buy it. As such, publishers, who are understandably profit-driven, now habitually slam their doors in the faces of new poets. Young poets are, however, breaking the muzzle through the adoption of alternative media, Spoken word poetry is all the rage, particularly in Harare, with exponents like Mutumwapavi (Tinashe Muchuri), So Profound (Arnold Chirimika), Mbizo Chirasha, Tendai Maduwa and many others. Unlike their published predecessors, this new breed is techno-savvy and boasts a remarkable web-presence. As such, they remain unassailed, but rather ferried farther and wider, by the digital tide. Chirasha, for example, has 24 notable festival performances and at least 60 journal appearances in countries including Mexico, Canada, Namibia, Ghana, UK, Australia and Sudan \u2013 a feat few, if any,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-15T07:24:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-26T08:53:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/img.thezimbabwean.co.uk\/640_651_Arnold_Chirimika.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=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"hardsouth\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0\"},\"headline\":\"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing?\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-06-15T07:24:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-10-26T08:53:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509\"},\"wordCount\":1267,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/img.thezimbabwean.co.uk\\\/640_651_Arnold_Chirimika.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Books\",\"Tech\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blockspaceballads.com\\\/?p=509\",\"name\":\"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing? 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| Blockspace","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing? | Blockspace","og_description":"Arnold “So Profound” Chirimika \u201cThe poetry of the earth is never dead.\u201d When John Keats, absorbed in the mesmeric notes of nature, made this observation, he had certainly not foreseen the love-hate relationship of the Internet and creative writing. 130 years on, literature is still alive and viral, not so much through the hedge choruses Keats referenced in his sonnet, as through virtual libraries, author pages, online writers\u2019 guilds and share buttons. The proliferation of digital tools and instant communication protocols has, for better and for worse, vastly altered the production and reception of literature in the 21st century. However, we can at least agree that literature has outlived the Web 2.0 sell-by date stamped on it by digital migration to make use of the very space that threatened its existence. Poetic justice, if you like. If Shakespeare was to be conjured back to the living for a moment, I guess he would dash home straightaway to see how much of his unpublished scrolls and parchments are still intact. Before he arrives, he might be surprised to see fellow passengers hunched over WhatsApp-able tablets, exchanging quotes from his plays. After coming to terms with how much reading patterns have changed since 1620, Shakespeare might as well shrug, coin a new quote and say: \u201cA rose in any other vase still smells as sweet.\u201d Whether Galileo Galilei or Mark Zuckerberg performs the midwifery rites is neither here nor there. The potency, durability and infectiousness of art will fling its mojo from any medium. Mediums will change with the lapse of times but good literature, chiseled after the shape of the heart, will withstand the wear of centuries and bug ages to come with the same emotive facility. The notion that the writing is \u201con the wall\u201d for literature, as much as it is intended for an obituary, can well be read to signify how literature is now patent on the social network. Such are the double meanings underlying the art of our day. The equivocal tenor of digitisation ushers Literature Today to the question:\u00a0 Is the Internet a friend or foe of literature? I will readily argue that if Internet is a disservice instead of a benefactor to literature, then the problem is that our own book sector is either underutilising or underestimating the Internet at its own peril. As I once pointed out, water is an apt metaphor for the Internet: just as the liquid has no shape of its own but assumes the shape of any container, the Internet has no immanent character but merely responds to user instructions. A deterministic of reading of the Internet \u2013 the impression that man, the artist in this case, is at the mercy of technology \u2013 is haywire. Writers and publishers can direct the Internet to their own interests. Prolific writer Aaron Chiundura-Moyo says as much as the transition from primitive to modern weapons has enhanced warfare, if gun control was not in place, trigger-happy gun-totters would have made the human race extinct by now. Likewise, Moyo argues that even if technology presents negative possibilities like piracy, institutions of authority can still monitor its use to guarantee optimal returns. The Internet is not an invincible behemoth we have made it out to be. It is, rather, an underutilised field of opportunities. Literary critic Prof George Kahari is of the view that Zimbabwean literature has actually improved but its transmission has been knocked hard by an austere economy. \u201cThe majority of Zimbabweans are poor and would rather buy mealie-meal than buy a novel,\u201d Kahari says. \u201cPublishers can only publish what they can sell. And it turns out that libraries and schools are no longer buying much as they used to. \u201cThere will come a time when the adoption of electronic publishing in Zimbabwe will reawaken interest in literature. Even those old texts people seem to have forgotten about will come back again. It has happened in other countries and it can also happen here,\u201d he says. Media commentator Phillip Santos says that writers and publishers find themselves losing out to piracy is because they are doing business as usual, which keeps them several steps behind current trends and outside contemporary practices He says that the runaway digitalisation of all socio-economic, creative and political activities has prompted migration to digital platforms across the horizon, hence the need for the book sector to acclimatise. \u201cLiterature, whose own existential trajectory can be traced back to as far as history cares to remember, is now forced to incorporate modern technological interventions throughout the workflow process,\u201d Santos says. \u201cThe conceptualisation, writing, editing, packaging, distribution and consumption of literary works is now likely to be laced around digital devices. It is necessary that writers, publishers and distributors approach their work with this reality in mind,\u201d he says. While our terminally technophobic traditional institutions are failing to take charge of the information war and restore the glamour of the book sector, I have watched with interest how Zimbabwean poets, in particular, are staking their claim to relevance in a prohibiting environment. Publishers are, by and large, no longer handling poetry, except for occasional multi-authored anthologies. According to Salt Publishing, there are more people who write poetry than who read it and more people who read poetry than those who buy it. As such, publishers, who are understandably profit-driven, now habitually slam their doors in the faces of new poets. Young poets are, however, breaking the muzzle through the adoption of alternative media, Spoken word poetry is all the rage, particularly in Harare, with exponents like Mutumwapavi (Tinashe Muchuri), So Profound (Arnold Chirimika), Mbizo Chirasha, Tendai Maduwa and many others. Unlike their published predecessors, this new breed is techno-savvy and boasts a remarkable web-presence. As such, they remain unassailed, but rather ferried farther and wider, by the digital tide. Chirasha, for example, has 24 notable festival performances and at least 60 journal appearances in countries including Mexico, Canada, Namibia, Ghana, UK, Australia and Sudan \u2013 a feat few, if any,","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2014-06-15T07:24:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-26T08:53:59+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/img.thezimbabwean.co.uk\/640_651_Arnold_Chirimika.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"hardsouth","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"hardsouth","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509"},"author":{"name":"hardsouth","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0"},"headline":"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing?","datePublished":"2014-06-15T07:24:00+00:00","dateModified":"2026-10-26T08:53:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509"},"wordCount":1267,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/img.thezimbabwean.co.uk\/640_651_Arnold_Chirimika.jpg","articleSection":["Books","Tech"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509","url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=509","name":"Internet \u2013 Friend or Foe of Creative Writing? 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