{"id":539,"date":"2014-06-07T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T12:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrmushava.wordpress.com\/2014\/06\/07\/zimbabwe-as-seen-through-poetic-lenses\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T07:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T07:03:06","slug":"zimbabwe-as-seen-through-poetic-lenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe as Seen Through Poetic Lenses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ghetto Diary and Other Poems<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Book: Ghetto Diary and Other Poems<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Editor: Munyaradzi Z. Mbire<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Publisher: ZPH Publishers (2011)<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Zimbabwean poetry is a cosmopolitan office. Few local poets seek to make a conventional impression, hence the counterpoint of angles which inheres in the tradition.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The tradition is a melting pot where individual perceptions, native sensibilities, contra-conventional attitudes, universal experiences and aesthetic devices simmer to generate flavours adapted to varied tastes.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Flora Veit-Wild observes that despite sharing a setting where experiences such as the search for identity, effects of urbanisation and colonial devastations often line the task-pane, they are notable differences in how Zimbabwean poets respond to common experiences. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cDepending on their age, their individual backgrounds and their education, they show very different preoccupations, approaches and styles,\u201d Veit-Wild notes in \u201cPatterns of Poetry in Zimbabwe,\u201d with particular reference to the so-called lost generation of Zimbabwean literature.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The contemporary poets maintain this detachment from set templates but seem to share one thing above all, namely the tradition of questioning, in the way they grapple with challenges obtaining in their broader environs.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Since Pathisa Nyathi portrayed as the poet as a statesman in an artistic mantle in \u201cTill the Silence be Broken,\u201d several poets have utilised their poetic licence to deliberate state affairs in their immediate and remote dynamics.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
There has been a representative volume for each epoch; \u201cZimbabwe Poetry in English\u201d (anachronistically, in this case) to capture the founding era of nationalism and rediscovery, \u201cAnd Now the Poets Speak\u201d to reflect on the liberation struggle and post-colonial anticipation and \u201cState of the Nation\u201d to appraise the turbulent years.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems,\u201d one of the more recent collections, is not a response to a particular period but crosses varied spectra, engaging matters of universal concern such as life and death, love, family, community, family, morality and geopolitics.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The featured poets, however, retain a nationalist command as they relate Zimbabwean and African experiences, recapturing the continent\u2019s progress through slavery, colonialism, liberation, neo-colonial subjugation, skewed multi-lateral relationships and the trending aspects of globalisation.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The anthology is poorer for lack of a prefatory section, thematic segments and biographical information on the contributors, which might have otherwise enhanced reader insight. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
On the positive side, however, the arrangement gives each poet ample space to establish unity of thought and exhibit their individual niche in a holistic sequence without losing track by being fitted in a generic school.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Clarity and minute perceptiveness come across as recurrent attributes in much of the anthology. The poets have remarkably severed their wares from the sophistication of most of the early poets whose work intimidated readers with its heavy diction.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The title piece \u201cGhetto Diary\u201d by Ethel Kabwato serialises typical scenes of high density life. Ghetto images like cooking smoke occasioned by incessant power cuts, early morning gossip over the fence, headaches over soccer results, probably as bets prove badly calculated, small house fracases, high water bills when there is no running water for the greater part\u00a0 of the month and demolition of tuckshops are strung together in the poem. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
The opening contribution is from David Mungoshi an award-winning novelist who had a colourful stint as Moto\u2019s literary columnist using the pseudonym Chigango Musandireve during the 90\u2019s.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mungoshi takes on the materialist tendencies in today\u2019s religion in the poem \u201cSeen on a blotter in a bank.\u201d The persona prays to God to guarantee his business interests, meticulously quoting scriptures to move the heart of God before exclaiming \u201cCheers Good Lord\/ See you in the chapel.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
One encounters an inventory of priorities where worship is second fiddle to monetary pursuits and prayer is manipulated into a means to an end rather than interaction with God.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
In \u201cFriend Peasant Farmer,\u201d Mungoshi pays homage to that forgotten mainstay of the nation and challenges society\u2019s demeaning evaluation of the rural population. The poem recounts the exploits of peasants in the service of the nation, mobilising support for the comrades, being tortured by foreign soldiers and providing the majority votes. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Mungoshi announces at length \u201cNow a new struggle has started\/ And must needs intensify\/ Lest hunger stalk us perpetually.\u201d One is reminded of William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cResolution and Independence\u201d where a poor and old man determined to eke out an honest living by utilising the means at his disposal instead of waiting for intervention affects a change in Wordsworth.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems\u201d is a departure-point from some of the recent anthologies where focus almost exclusively on the single narrative of political crisis. There are poems which do not consign the deliberation of vice and virtue to broadsheet political players but extends it to everyday characters. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
If anything, it demonstrates that the malfeasances of those who make it to the public pedestal are not their inventions but products of the society from which they emerge.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Theodora Chirapa is the anthology\u2019s ultimate social evangelist with her chronicles of the multi-pronged ills visited on society by promiscuity and infidelity. \u201cAbortion\u2019s Backstreet\u201d is an S.O.S for babies made and sacrificed in the illicit rites of sex outside marriage. One is compelled to agree with the pro-life rationale that abortion cannot be made safe because it always ends in someone dying.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cLove Child,\u201d \u201cThe Vulture,\u201d \u201cThe Wolf,\u201d \u201cLiberian Lover,\u201d and \u201cLollipop Man\u201d decry a host of sexual indiscretions including teacher-student affairs, small (some call them smell) houses, paedophilia and relationships entered on convenience rather than affection with \u00e9migr\u00e9s.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Taking the discussion further from Zvisinei Sandi\u2019s poems which border on sensuality in its immediate appeal not its aftermath, Chirapa presents the social horrors of intimacy outside matrimonial circles and invokes divine justice: \u201cJudgement day is coming\/ And the bleating lamps\/ refuse to be silenced any longer.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Eresina Hwede\u2019s poetry is conversational and engaging notwithstanding its apparent technical baldness. \u201cMen of Africa I blame you\u201d rues the conflicts which have riven the region, including in Sudan, DRC and Somalia. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
She asks simple, seldom asked questions like \u201cWhat would you be thinking when you go out to buy guns to kill your own?\u201d \u2013 a \u00a0pertinent question considering that Africa\u2019s trouble spots are perpetually impoverished despite having strategic resources because negative energy is expended on conflict instead of development.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
In \u201cOf buying and selling,\u201d Magosvongwe laments the essential obsolescence of marriage and asks the disturbing question: \u201care we not selling merely our sisters joyfully\/ to other men\/ and\/ buying our wives for our mothers\/ with the help of our aunts and our sisters?\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
As family goes dysfunctional, assailed by modernist broadsides, the question becomes expedient even in the our ostensibly conservative society where some spouses are just fellow tenants, shut away from each other by professional, technological, egoistic and extra-marital middle walls.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Veteran writer, journalist and ex-combatant Alexander Kanengoni relives hair-raising accounts of the liberation struggle. \u201cNyadzonia Massacre\u201d and \u201cOne Day at Doerei Refugee Camp\u201d recall the vulnerability and anxiety associated with the struggle, unsettling the reader with such lines as \u201cWe have had\/ A sumptuous meal\/ Of fried anxiety\/ What now remains is just waiting.\u201d Other poems recall lost opportunities, idyllic and melancholic like the later Thomas Hardy. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span>Zimbabwean poetry is in its twilight stretch, with most publishers rejecting poetry anthologies because of the limited market. Hopefully, \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems\u201d will give a good account of the tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghetto Diary and Other Poems Book: Ghetto Diary and Other Poems Editor: Munyaradzi Z. Mbire Publisher: ZPH Publishers (2011) Zimbabwean poetry is a cosmopolitan office. Few local poets seek to make a conventional impression, hence the counterpoint of angles which inheres in the tradition. The tradition is a melting pot where individual perceptions, native sensibilities, contra-conventional attitudes, universal experiences and aesthetic devices simmer to generate flavours adapted to varied tastes. Flora Veit-Wild observes that despite sharing a setting where experiences such as the search for identity, effects of urbanisation and colonial devastations often line the task-pane, they are notable differences in how Zimbabwean poets respond to common experiences. \u201cDepending on their age, their individual backgrounds and their education, they show very different preoccupations, approaches and styles,\u201d Veit-Wild notes in \u201cPatterns of Poetry in Zimbabwe,\u201d with particular reference to the so-called lost generation of Zimbabwean literature. The contemporary poets maintain this detachment from set templates but seem to share one thing above all, namely the tradition of questioning, in the way they grapple with challenges obtaining in their broader environs. Since Pathisa Nyathi portrayed as the poet as a statesman in an artistic mantle in \u201cTill the Silence be Broken,\u201d several poets have utilised their poetic licence to deliberate state affairs in their immediate and remote dynamics. There has been a representative volume for each epoch; \u201cZimbabwe Poetry in English\u201d (anachronistically, in this case) to capture the founding era of nationalism and rediscovery, \u201cAnd Now the Poets Speak\u201d to reflect on the liberation struggle and post-colonial anticipation and \u201cState of the Nation\u201d to appraise the turbulent years. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems,\u201d one of the more recent collections, is not a response to a particular period but crosses varied spectra, engaging matters of universal concern such as life and death, love, family, community, family, morality and geopolitics. The featured poets, however, retain a nationalist command as they relate Zimbabwean and African experiences, recapturing the continent\u2019s progress through slavery, colonialism, liberation, neo-colonial subjugation, skewed multi-lateral relationships and the trending aspects of globalisation. The anthology is poorer for lack of a prefatory section, thematic segments and biographical information on the contributors, which might have otherwise enhanced reader insight. On the positive side, however, the arrangement gives each poet ample space to establish unity of thought and exhibit their individual niche in a holistic sequence without losing track by being fitted in a generic school. Clarity and minute perceptiveness come across as recurrent attributes in much of the anthology. The poets have remarkably severed their wares from the sophistication of most of the early poets whose work intimidated readers with its heavy diction. The title piece \u201cGhetto Diary\u201d by Ethel Kabwato serialises typical scenes of high density life. Ghetto images like cooking smoke occasioned by incessant power cuts, early morning gossip over the fence, headaches over soccer results, probably as bets prove badly calculated, small house fracases, high water bills when there is no running water for the greater part\u00a0 of the month and demolition of tuckshops are strung together in the poem. The opening contribution is from David Mungoshi an award-winning novelist who had a colourful stint as Moto\u2019s literary columnist using the pseudonym Chigango Musandireve during the 90\u2019s. Mungoshi takes on the materialist tendencies in today\u2019s religion in the poem \u201cSeen on a blotter in a bank.\u201d The persona prays to God to guarantee his business interests, meticulously quoting scriptures to move the heart of God before exclaiming \u201cCheers Good Lord\/ See you in the chapel.\u201d One encounters an inventory of priorities where worship is second fiddle to monetary pursuits and prayer is manipulated into a means to an end rather than interaction with God. In \u201cFriend Peasant Farmer,\u201d Mungoshi pays homage to that forgotten mainstay of the nation and challenges society\u2019s demeaning evaluation of the rural population. The poem recounts the exploits of peasants in the service of the nation, mobilising support for the comrades, being tortured by foreign soldiers and providing the majority votes. Mungoshi announces at length \u201cNow a new struggle has started\/ And must needs intensify\/ Lest hunger stalk us perpetually.\u201d One is reminded of William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cResolution and Independence\u201d where a poor and old man determined to eke out an honest living by utilising the means at his disposal instead of waiting for intervention affects a change in Wordsworth. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems\u201d is a departure-point from some of the recent anthologies where focus almost exclusively on the single narrative of political crisis. There are poems which do not consign the deliberation of vice and virtue to broadsheet political players but extends it to everyday characters. If anything, it demonstrates that the malfeasances of those who make it to the public pedestal are not their inventions but products of the society from which they emerge. Theodora Chirapa is the anthology\u2019s ultimate social evangelist with her chronicles of the multi-pronged ills visited on society by promiscuity and infidelity. \u201cAbortion\u2019s Backstreet\u201d is an S.O.S for babies made and sacrificed in the illicit rites of sex outside marriage. One is compelled to agree with the pro-life rationale that abortion cannot be made safe because it always ends in someone dying. \u201cLove Child,\u201d \u201cThe Vulture,\u201d \u201cThe Wolf,\u201d \u201cLiberian Lover,\u201d and \u201cLollipop Man\u201d decry a host of sexual indiscretions including teacher-student affairs, small (some call them smell) houses, paedophilia and relationships entered on convenience rather than affection with \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Taking the discussion further from Zvisinei Sandi\u2019s poems which border on sensuality in its immediate appeal not its aftermath, Chirapa presents the social horrors of intimacy outside matrimonial circles and invokes divine justice: \u201cJudgement day is coming\/ And the bleating lamps\/ refuse to be silenced any longer.\u201d Eresina Hwede\u2019s poetry is conversational and engaging notwithstanding its apparent technical baldness. \u201cMen of Africa I blame you\u201d rues the conflicts which have riven the region, including in Sudan, DRC and Somalia. She asks simple, seldom asked questions like \u201cWhat would you be thinking when you go out to buy guns to kill your<\/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-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nZimbabwe as Seen Through Poetic Lenses | 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=539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zimbabwe as Seen Through Poetic Lenses | Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ghetto Diary and Other Poems Book: Ghetto Diary and Other Poems Editor: Munyaradzi Z. Mbire Publisher: ZPH Publishers (2011) Zimbabwean poetry is a cosmopolitan office. Few local poets seek to make a conventional impression, hence the counterpoint of angles which inheres in the tradition. The tradition is a melting pot where individual perceptions, native sensibilities, contra-conventional attitudes, universal experiences and aesthetic devices simmer to generate flavours adapted to varied tastes. Flora Veit-Wild observes that despite sharing a setting where experiences such as the search for identity, effects of urbanisation and colonial devastations often line the task-pane, they are notable differences in how Zimbabwean poets respond to common experiences. \u201cDepending on their age, their individual backgrounds and their education, they show very different preoccupations, approaches and styles,\u201d Veit-Wild notes in \u201cPatterns of Poetry in Zimbabwe,\u201d with particular reference to the so-called lost generation of Zimbabwean literature. The contemporary poets maintain this detachment from set templates but seem to share one thing above all, namely the tradition of questioning, in the way they grapple with challenges obtaining in their broader environs. Since Pathisa Nyathi portrayed as the poet as a statesman in an artistic mantle in \u201cTill the Silence be Broken,\u201d several poets have utilised their poetic licence to deliberate state affairs in their immediate and remote dynamics. There has been a representative volume for each epoch; \u201cZimbabwe Poetry in English\u201d (anachronistically, in this case) to capture the founding era of nationalism and rediscovery, \u201cAnd Now the Poets Speak\u201d to reflect on the liberation struggle and post-colonial anticipation and \u201cState of the Nation\u201d to appraise the turbulent years. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems,\u201d one of the more recent collections, is not a response to a particular period but crosses varied spectra, engaging matters of universal concern such as life and death, love, family, community, family, morality and geopolitics. The featured poets, however, retain a nationalist command as they relate Zimbabwean and African experiences, recapturing the continent\u2019s progress through slavery, colonialism, liberation, neo-colonial subjugation, skewed multi-lateral relationships and the trending aspects of globalisation. The anthology is poorer for lack of a prefatory section, thematic segments and biographical information on the contributors, which might have otherwise enhanced reader insight. On the positive side, however, the arrangement gives each poet ample space to establish unity of thought and exhibit their individual niche in a holistic sequence without losing track by being fitted in a generic school. Clarity and minute perceptiveness come across as recurrent attributes in much of the anthology. The poets have remarkably severed their wares from the sophistication of most of the early poets whose work intimidated readers with its heavy diction. The title piece \u201cGhetto Diary\u201d by Ethel Kabwato serialises typical scenes of high density life. Ghetto images like cooking smoke occasioned by incessant power cuts, early morning gossip over the fence, headaches over soccer results, probably as bets prove badly calculated, small house fracases, high water bills when there is no running water for the greater part\u00a0 of the month and demolition of tuckshops are strung together in the poem. The opening contribution is from David Mungoshi an award-winning novelist who had a colourful stint as Moto\u2019s literary columnist using the pseudonym Chigango Musandireve during the 90\u2019s. Mungoshi takes on the materialist tendencies in today\u2019s religion in the poem \u201cSeen on a blotter in a bank.\u201d The persona prays to God to guarantee his business interests, meticulously quoting scriptures to move the heart of God before exclaiming \u201cCheers Good Lord\/ See you in the chapel.\u201d One encounters an inventory of priorities where worship is second fiddle to monetary pursuits and prayer is manipulated into a means to an end rather than interaction with God. In \u201cFriend Peasant Farmer,\u201d Mungoshi pays homage to that forgotten mainstay of the nation and challenges society\u2019s demeaning evaluation of the rural population. The poem recounts the exploits of peasants in the service of the nation, mobilising support for the comrades, being tortured by foreign soldiers and providing the majority votes. Mungoshi announces at length \u201cNow a new struggle has started\/ And must needs intensify\/ Lest hunger stalk us perpetually.\u201d One is reminded of William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cResolution and Independence\u201d where a poor and old man determined to eke out an honest living by utilising the means at his disposal instead of waiting for intervention affects a change in Wordsworth. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems\u201d is a departure-point from some of the recent anthologies where focus almost exclusively on the single narrative of political crisis. There are poems which do not consign the deliberation of vice and virtue to broadsheet political players but extends it to everyday characters. If anything, it demonstrates that the malfeasances of those who make it to the public pedestal are not their inventions but products of the society from which they emerge. Theodora Chirapa is the anthology\u2019s ultimate social evangelist with her chronicles of the multi-pronged ills visited on society by promiscuity and infidelity. \u201cAbortion\u2019s Backstreet\u201d is an S.O.S for babies made and sacrificed in the illicit rites of sex outside marriage. One is compelled to agree with the pro-life rationale that abortion cannot be made safe because it always ends in someone dying. \u201cLove Child,\u201d \u201cThe Vulture,\u201d \u201cThe Wolf,\u201d \u201cLiberian Lover,\u201d and \u201cLollipop Man\u201d decry a host of sexual indiscretions including teacher-student affairs, small (some call them smell) houses, paedophilia and relationships entered on convenience rather than affection with \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Taking the discussion further from Zvisinei Sandi\u2019s poems which border on sensuality in its immediate appeal not its aftermath, Chirapa presents the social horrors of intimacy outside matrimonial circles and invokes divine justice: \u201cJudgement day is coming\/ And the bleating lamps\/ refuse to be silenced any longer.\u201d Eresina Hwede\u2019s poetry is conversational and engaging notwithstanding its apparent technical baldness. \u201cMen of Africa I blame you\u201d rues the conflicts which have riven the region, including in Sudan, DRC and Somalia. She asks simple, seldom asked questions like \u201cWhat would you be thinking when you go out to buy guns to kill your\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=539\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blockspace\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-07T12:25:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-10-26T07:03:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-wmzrHrmfSYg\/UNLmSZI-OlI\/AAAAAAAAA-E\/TXQrkh3SWkc\/s400\/Ghetto+Cover.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\" 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Mbire Publisher: ZPH Publishers (2011) Zimbabwean poetry is a cosmopolitan office. Few local poets seek to make a conventional impression, hence the counterpoint of angles which inheres in the tradition. The tradition is a melting pot where individual perceptions, native sensibilities, contra-conventional attitudes, universal experiences and aesthetic devices simmer to generate flavours adapted to varied tastes. Flora Veit-Wild observes that despite sharing a setting where experiences such as the search for identity, effects of urbanisation and colonial devastations often line the task-pane, they are notable differences in how Zimbabwean poets respond to common experiences. \u201cDepending on their age, their individual backgrounds and their education, they show very different preoccupations, approaches and styles,\u201d Veit-Wild notes in \u201cPatterns of Poetry in Zimbabwe,\u201d with particular reference to the so-called lost generation of Zimbabwean literature. The contemporary poets maintain this detachment from set templates but seem to share one thing above all, namely the tradition of questioning, in the way they grapple with challenges obtaining in their broader environs. Since Pathisa Nyathi portrayed as the poet as a statesman in an artistic mantle in \u201cTill the Silence be Broken,\u201d several poets have utilised their poetic licence to deliberate state affairs in their immediate and remote dynamics. There has been a representative volume for each epoch; \u201cZimbabwe Poetry in English\u201d (anachronistically, in this case) to capture the founding era of nationalism and rediscovery, \u201cAnd Now the Poets Speak\u201d to reflect on the liberation struggle and post-colonial anticipation and \u201cState of the Nation\u201d to appraise the turbulent years. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems,\u201d one of the more recent collections, is not a response to a particular period but crosses varied spectra, engaging matters of universal concern such as life and death, love, family, community, family, morality and geopolitics. The featured poets, however, retain a nationalist command as they relate Zimbabwean and African experiences, recapturing the continent\u2019s progress through slavery, colonialism, liberation, neo-colonial subjugation, skewed multi-lateral relationships and the trending aspects of globalisation. The anthology is poorer for lack of a prefatory section, thematic segments and biographical information on the contributors, which might have otherwise enhanced reader insight. On the positive side, however, the arrangement gives each poet ample space to establish unity of thought and exhibit their individual niche in a holistic sequence without losing track by being fitted in a generic school. Clarity and minute perceptiveness come across as recurrent attributes in much of the anthology. The poets have remarkably severed their wares from the sophistication of most of the early poets whose work intimidated readers with its heavy diction. The title piece \u201cGhetto Diary\u201d by Ethel Kabwato serialises typical scenes of high density life. Ghetto images like cooking smoke occasioned by incessant power cuts, early morning gossip over the fence, headaches over soccer results, probably as bets prove badly calculated, small house fracases, high water bills when there is no running water for the greater part\u00a0 of the month and demolition of tuckshops are strung together in the poem. The opening contribution is from David Mungoshi an award-winning novelist who had a colourful stint as Moto\u2019s literary columnist using the pseudonym Chigango Musandireve during the 90\u2019s. Mungoshi takes on the materialist tendencies in today\u2019s religion in the poem \u201cSeen on a blotter in a bank.\u201d The persona prays to God to guarantee his business interests, meticulously quoting scriptures to move the heart of God before exclaiming \u201cCheers Good Lord\/ See you in the chapel.\u201d One encounters an inventory of priorities where worship is second fiddle to monetary pursuits and prayer is manipulated into a means to an end rather than interaction with God. In \u201cFriend Peasant Farmer,\u201d Mungoshi pays homage to that forgotten mainstay of the nation and challenges society\u2019s demeaning evaluation of the rural population. The poem recounts the exploits of peasants in the service of the nation, mobilising support for the comrades, being tortured by foreign soldiers and providing the majority votes. Mungoshi announces at length \u201cNow a new struggle has started\/ And must needs intensify\/ Lest hunger stalk us perpetually.\u201d One is reminded of William Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cResolution and Independence\u201d where a poor and old man determined to eke out an honest living by utilising the means at his disposal instead of waiting for intervention affects a change in Wordsworth. \u201cGhetto Diary and Other Poems\u201d is a departure-point from some of the recent anthologies where focus almost exclusively on the single narrative of political crisis. There are poems which do not consign the deliberation of vice and virtue to broadsheet political players but extends it to everyday characters. If anything, it demonstrates that the malfeasances of those who make it to the public pedestal are not their inventions but products of the society from which they emerge. Theodora Chirapa is the anthology\u2019s ultimate social evangelist with her chronicles of the multi-pronged ills visited on society by promiscuity and infidelity. \u201cAbortion\u2019s Backstreet\u201d is an S.O.S for babies made and sacrificed in the illicit rites of sex outside marriage. One is compelled to agree with the pro-life rationale that abortion cannot be made safe because it always ends in someone dying. \u201cLove Child,\u201d \u201cThe Vulture,\u201d \u201cThe Wolf,\u201d \u201cLiberian Lover,\u201d and \u201cLollipop Man\u201d decry a host of sexual indiscretions including teacher-student affairs, small (some call them smell) houses, paedophilia and relationships entered on convenience rather than affection with \u00e9migr\u00e9s. Taking the discussion further from Zvisinei Sandi\u2019s poems which border on sensuality in its immediate appeal not its aftermath, Chirapa presents the social horrors of intimacy outside matrimonial circles and invokes divine justice: \u201cJudgement day is coming\/ And the bleating lamps\/ refuse to be silenced any longer.\u201d Eresina Hwede\u2019s poetry is conversational and engaging notwithstanding its apparent technical baldness. \u201cMen of Africa I blame you\u201d rues the conflicts which have riven the region, including in Sudan, DRC and Somalia. She asks simple, seldom asked questions like \u201cWhat would you be thinking when you go out to buy guns to kill your","og_url":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=539","og_site_name":"Blockspace","article_published_time":"2014-06-07T12:25:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-10-26T07:03:06+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-wmzrHrmfSYg\/UNLmSZI-OlI\/AAAAAAAAA-E\/TXQrkh3SWkc\/s400\/Ghetto+Cover.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=539#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/?p=539"},"author":{"name":"hardsouth","@id":"https:\/\/blockspaceballads.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a336a678f28eacb341ce63c6b84b17d0"},"headline":"Zimbabwe as Seen Through Poetic 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