Togara
Muzanenhamo has been chosen to represent Zimbabwe at what is being called the
biggest gathering of poets in world history, the 2012 Poetry Parnassus in
London, where it is hoped a poet will participate from each of the countries
taking part in the London Olympics. Togara
studied in France and The Netherlands. After his studies he returned to
Zimbabwe and worked as a journalist, then moved to an institute dedicated to
the development of African screenplays. Muzanenhamo's first collection of
poems, Spirit Brides, is published by
Carcanet Press. He is based on his family farm near Norton outside Harare.
Prior to the sad death of Julius Chingono and the publication of Together, the collection of stories and
poems by Julius and John Eppel, Togara was of considerable assistance to 'amaBooks in communicating with Julius and in the organization of Julius’
poems.
From
Ireland's Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney
to Kim Jong-il's exiled former court poet Jang Jin
Seong, hundreds of poets from around the world are set to gather on
the banks of the Thames this summer in an attempt to recreate the poetic spirit
of the ancient Olympic Games.
Thousands
of nominations were received from the public for the best poet in their
country, with a panel including the poet Simon
Armitage and other experts whittling this down to find one poet from
each of the 204 competing Olympic nations. One hundred and forty poets, from
Kazakhstan's 24-year-old Akerke Mussabekova to 83-year-old Anise Koltz
from Luxembourg, have already confirmed attendance at the festival.
The
writers will appear at Poetry
Parnassus, a week-long series of poetic events at the end of June led by the
Southbank Centre's artist-in-residence Armitage and artistic director Jude Kelly and inspired by
epinicians, poetry commissioned as part of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece.
It will see poets, rappers, storytellers and praise singers reading their work
in more than 50 languages, from Haitian creole to Maori, with the event to open
as 100,000 poems are dropped from a helicopter on to the waiting crowd. Many of
the poets will be travelling to the UK for the first time.
Heaney
was picked for Ireland, while his fellow Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka
is representing Nigeria. Former poet laureate Kay Ryan
will be speaking for the US, Bill Manhire
for New Zealand and John Kinsella
for Australia. Lesser-known names at the festival range from North Korea's
Jang, a former court poet to Kim who fled the country after becoming
disillusioned with the regime, to Albania's Luljeta Lleshanaku, who grew up
under house arrest as her parents opposed the former communist regime in the
country. Nicaragua's poet Gioconda Belli was forced into exile in Mexico after
time as a Sandinista revolutionary, while Didier Awadi, representing Senegal,
is a rapper and political activist.
"Poetry's
a broad church and the further you go globally the broader it is. Some
countries' entire poetic tradition is in spoken word form and we wanted to
represent that variety," said Armitage. "There will be everything
from the learned literary academic poets to one writer who describes himself as
a spoken word and tattoo artist, which would be a dangerous combination after a
few drinks. And there are voices of protest and dissent – at the outset we knew
we wanted a poet from North Korea but we imagined we would end up with a puppet
poet sent by the government, whereas in fact we have got a dissenting voice who
used to be a court poet and made his escape."
Each
poet will also be contributing a poem to an anthology, The World Record, out on 26 June from Bloodaxe Books. Poetry Parnassus is part
of the finale of the Cultural
Olympiad, and will take place at the Southbank Centre in London
from 26 June to 1 July.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/17/poetry-parnassus-poets-olympic-nation
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