Togara Muzanenhamo a finalist for African Poetry Prize

The three finalists for books chosen for the 2015 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry are Zimbabwe's Togara Muzanenhamo for 'Gumiguru', South Africa's Kobus Moolman for 'A Book of Rooms' and, again from South Africa, Joan Metererkamp for 'Now the World Takes These Breaths'. Gumiguru, published by Carcanet Press in the United Kingdom, is Muzanenhamo's second  collection. His most recent, 'Textures, poems by John Eppel and Togara Muzanenhamo', published late last year by amaBooks in Zimbabwe, was launched at two events in Bulawayo, at the Indaba Book Cafe and at Christian Brothers College, and in Harare at the Book Cafe. He was recently announced as a finalist for this year’s Artists In Residency (AIR) programme and was a featured poet at the 2015 Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam and at the UK's Ledbury Poetry Festival.
Moolman, University of KwaZulu-Natal academic and playwright, was a finalist in the inaugural Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry and was also the winner of the 2013 Sol Plaatje European Union Award.
The Glenna Luschei Prize is worth $5 000 and the winner will be announced on 18 January, 2016. This pan-African poetry prize, funded by literary philanthropist and poet Glenna Luschei, is the only one of its kind in the world. Established to promote African poetry written in English or in translation, it recognizes a significant book published each year by an African poet. Entries came from Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa.
Each year, an internationally renowned poet judges the prize. Now in its second year, the number of entries has more than doubled, and the quality and diversity of books received provided the judge, South African poet Gabeba Baderoon, with a challenging yet enjoyable task. Baderoon is the author of a number of poetry collections including The Dream in the Next Body and A Hundred Silences. She received the Daimler Chrysler Award for South African Poetry in 2005, and is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University in the United States.
Baderoon says: “I read these books and many of the poems again and again. The [finalist books] feel thoughtfully shaped, rivetingly intelligent and superbly crafted. I found them a pleasure and an education to read. Indeed, my horizons were vastly expanded by the extraordinarily well-realised poems in these collections.”

Togara Muzanenhamo in Europe

Togara Muzanenhamo headed for Europe this week to take part in international poetry events. This follows the successful launches of his collaboration with John Eppel, Textures, in both Bulawayo and Harare. The poetry in Textures has been well received by those attending the launches and particularly by reviewers.

Firstly, he will be in The Netherlands for the 46th Poetry International Festival Rotterdam from 9-13 June. He will read from his recent poetry publications, Gumiguru and Textures, at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 'Reasons to be Cheerful Festival', as well as at several events during the festival, sharing the stage with with China's Guo Jinniu, Belgium's Els Moors, Holland's Hester Knibbe, Russia's Philip Nikolayev, Britain's Jen Hadfield and Australia's Lionel Fogarty. Togara will also talk about the craft of his poetry on the afternoon of Saturday 13 June.

From The Netherlands, Muzanenhamo plans to travel on to the United Kingdom for a number of events, including participating in the Ledbury Poetry Festival in early July. Ledbury will feature many well-known poets, including Simon Armitage, Paul Henry, Don Paterson,

Rowan Williams, Jonathan Edwards, John Burnside, Sophie Hannah, Ko Un and John Cooper Clarke. Togara will share the stage with John Burnside on 12 July, the last day of the festival.

Togara is no stranger to poetry events in Europe, having been on several residencies and the Zimbabwe representative at Poetry Parnassus, 'the greatest gathering of poets in world history' in London in 2012.

Photograph courtesy of Rumbi Katedza

A Busy Month for a Zimbabwean Poet

Togara Muzanenhamo is to launch two books of poetry and to complete a reading tour of the United Kingdom. Textures, Togara's collaboration with Bulawayo poet John Eppel, is to be published in Zimbabwe by 'amaBooks Publishers, and Gumiguru is to be published in the United Kingdom by Carcanet Press.

The reading tour started on October 1 at The Barbican Library, London, in celebration of National Poetry Day. Other events involving Togara include readings on 5 October at Ilkley Playhouse, as part of Black History Month; on 7 October at Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham; on 8 November at the Peter Pears Recital Room, Aldeburgh, as part of the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival; and on 14 October at Graves Gallery, Sheffield, as part of the Off the Shelf Festival, complementing the National Portrait Gallery's 'Picture the Poet' exhibition.

Togara is no stranger to participating in events in the United Kingdom. He was the Zimbabwe representative at Poetry Parnassus, ‘the biggest gathering of poets in world history’, where he read at the gala event with Seamus Heaney, Bill Manhire, Kay Ryan and Wole Soyinka at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Poetry Parnassus was part of the Cultural Olympiad that preceded the 2012 Olympic Games. He recently participated in the Worlds Literature Festival in Norwich. His first collection of poems, Spirit Brides, was also published by Carcanet Press, in 2006, and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. The Times Literary Supplement welcomed the poet as a young writer of solid distinction.  Carcanet published Spirit Brides in the same year as they published Chinua Achebe's Collected Poems; one reviewer, in Stand Magazine, commented that, 'these two poetry collections could almost epitomize the proud past and promising future of African poetry, insofar as the first represents a lifetime's achievement and the second a bright, new beginning.'

As Dr Drew Shaw states in the introduction to Textures, 'John Eppel and Togara Muzanenhamo epitomise the ideal of the poet dedicated to excellence in form as well as content. To read Textures is to see how Eppel and Muzanenhamo are in many ways similar yet also interestingly different. What connects them is meticulous attention to the craft of poetry, particularly to its musical elements. In their arrangement of words and creation of sounds and rhythms, John Eppel and Togara Muzanenhamo promote this classic view of poetry.'

Textures is the second collaboration involving John Eppel published by 'amaBooks, following Together, which included stories and poems by the late Julius Chingono along with those of John Eppel.