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LAST year Cynthia Marangwanda and Mbizo Chirasha did the country proud at the inaugural Sadc poetry festival in Windhoek, Namibia.
This year a bigger contingent is heading for the second edition of the regional poetry fete that kicks off in Botswana on Friday.
The venue is the Alliance Francaise de Gaborone. Zimbabwe will be represented by Batsirai Chigama, Tinashe Muchuri, Siphosethu Mpofu and Bhekumusa Moyo.
The theme for this year’s festival is ‘My Voice, Your Hand.’
Zimbabwe is likely to stand tall once again if the colourful biographies of the young representatives are anything to go by.
Chigama, a short story writer and performing poet, has taken part in bigger platforms such as the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), Arts Alive, South Africa and Intwasa Arts Festival in Bulawayo.
She also performed at the inaugural Thubalethu Youth Festival in 2009 in Harare and her recent stunts included appearances in acts that include the Literary Evening with Owen Sheers (Wales), In Memory of Dennis Brutus and International Women’s Day Celebrations.
An excerpt from her short story Waiting Area 2 was published in New Writings from Africa while the third edition of the same story was selected for the British Council’s Crossing Borders magazine in addition to several local and regional publications.
Then there is Muchuri who is a poet, performer, actor, and writer.
Many of his poems were published in online journals such as the Munyori Journal, Arts Initiates and Print Anthologies. He performs regularly at arts festivals in Zimbabwe and currently features in a local historical soap Tiriparwendo as the character Jecha.
His Shona poems appeared in an anthology called Jakwara reNhetembo that was published by Mambo Press two years ago.
Mpofu is a performing poet who was born in 1990 in Bulawayo.
She has performed at Intwasa Arts Festival, Ibumba Arts Festival, Poetry Slam and Radio Dialogue’s Day of the African Child.
She is currently a co-facilitator for the Poetic Saturday, a project supported by Radio Dialogue in Bulawayo.
Another Bulawayo-based artist, Moyo, is known for his part in the British Council’s Power in the Voice in 2006 and has performed alongside renowned poets Albert Nyathi, Chirikure Chirikure and musician Busi Ncube.
He also performed at Maruapula Poetry Festival (Botswana), Bulawayo Poetry Slam, House of Hunger Poetry Slam (Harare), Horror Café Poetry Slam (South Africa) and Exodus Poetry Slam (Botswana).
With such vast experience in young poets Zimbabwe’s flag will fly high in Gaborone.
Experienced artists, Memory Chirere and Raphael Chikukwa will join the team as workshop facilitators.
Other participating countries besides Zimbabwe and the hosts are Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Namibia.
The Sadc Poetry Festival is a product of Arts Initiates Southern Africa and Township Productions of Namibia.
Festival founder, Wonder Guchu, of Arts Initiates Southern Africa is hopeful that this year’s event will take the festival a step further since it fused poetry with visual arts.
“This year sees us climbing yet another rung up the ladder by bringing together visual artists and poets to inspire each other,” said Guchu.
“Poetry and art is one and the same thing. The difference is that a visual artist encodes their thoughts, feelings, ideas and visions into visual images while a poet does so in words.
“These are two sides of the same coin.
“It is very encouraging too that most visual artists invited to take part are eager to see if poets can derive inspiration from their works.
“Our objective remains the same — bringing together professionals and grassroots poets to share ideas and help each other to grow.”
BY GODWIN MUZARI
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