Bulawayo poets featured on Poetry International website

The work of seven Bulawayo poets is featured on this month's Poetry International website. Four of the seven have been published by 'amaBooks: Deon Marcus has had poems in each of the four books in the Short Writings series and his collection Sonatas won the 2005 National Arts Merit Award for Best First Book and the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association award for Poetry and Drama; Shari Eppel's poem Bhalagwe was first published in Short Writings from Bulawayo; Mgcini Nyoni's When We Were Young and Mthabisi Phili's Sunset In Mzilikazi were both published in Intwasa Poetry.

Information about the poets and samples of their work appear on:

http://zimbabwe.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=18083

Deon Marcus' Sonatas Reviewed

Review of Deon Marcus' poetry collection Sonatas from www.poetrybulawayoreviews.blogspot.com

Deon is a musician, a member of the Bulawayo Philharmonic Orchestra. The title Sonatas could be expected from a musician. The title also fits like a glove (forgive the cliché) as most of the poems are musical.

Reading this collection of poetry by Deon Marcus, it is not difficult to understand why he won a NAMA award for Best First Book 2005 and Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association award for Poetry and Drama 2005.

My firm belief is that poetry should be accessible; I am unwilling to develop a headache trying to understand what a poet is talking about. There is the myth that poetry should be abstract for it to be good. For the majority of Deon’s poems, you do not develop a headache trying to understand what he is talking about and the subject matter is relevant, take for example the poem The Erl-king:

What ever happened to those Sunday

afternoons when time for a moment stood

quite still, when poetry was read with tea and

scones and Schubert lieder filled the air with their

spinning wheels and Erl-king tales?

What ever happened to walks at Hillside

Dams and sitting sunning summer brows with

silky sweat and melting ice-cream cones and coke...

You can detect some musicality in Deon’s poems; the arrangement is not what I, who is totally tone deaf and without rhythm, would do. Deon’s collection is a must have for poetry lovers. I cannot resist sharing the very short poem Intermezzo:

A collage of moments nailed

together in the hope of making

something pretty?