Remembering Julius Chingono, 6 years gone

 Tired Feet

A man arrived

in a park,

kicked off shoelace-less shoes

from his fetid feet.

Tired feet stared

at a notice written –

‘stay off the grass’.

Lush grass sneezed,

the smell of dirty feet

choked its shoots.

The legs bent and creaked –

we cannot go further.

The man dropped

to sleep 

on an empty stomach.

and then there was his humour...

Drunk

In the photograph

I was so drunk

that I would stagger

out of the picture.

(both from Together, Julius Chingono and John Eppel, 2011)

Getting Together, poems and short stories by John Eppel and Julius Chingono ready for publication was a cooperative effort. Getting the work from John went smoothly as John lives in Bulawayo, our base, and is online. Julius lived in Norton, outside Harare, and did not have access to a computer. It was 2010 and time to call in the help of friends. The poet, Togara Muzanenhamo, didn't live far from Julius and offered to get the poems from Julius, type them up and email them to us. This worked well, we made suggested edits, sent them back to Togara, which he then shared with Julius. And so we progressed... The same routine was adopted for the short stories. The writer Tinashe Muchuri came to the rescue. He took on the task of typing Julius' stories from which we selected those which we chose to include in the collection and proceeded to edit them with Tinashe kindly acting as the go-between. In this way the anthology, Together, came into being.

The book now complete, we negotiated co-publishing deals with the the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and the University of New Orleans. All was going well and then we received the tragic news that Julius had died on January 2nd, 2011, before we had brought the collection out. So the launch became a tribute to Julius, where we played a video of him reading his work.

We will remember Julius.

Freedom Poetry Competition winners

Yoshira Marbel, from South Africa, has won the inaugural Freedom Poetry Competition, co-organised by Poetry Bulawayo and ’amaBooks Publishers, with her poem Peace. In second place was Farai Mpofu, with Flying Away, followed by Tinashe Muchuri’s If You Allow Me Just a Moment, Christopher Mlalazi’s Elephant Grass and Bhekilizwe Dube’s Celestial Dreams. Both Farai Mpofu and Bhekilizwe Dube are better known for their short story writings, both having been published in several of the ’amaBooks short writings collections, and Tinashe Muchuri is well known as a performance poet. Christopher Mlalazi’s previous reputation is primarily as an award-winning playwright and prose writer.

There were 78 submissions to the competition, from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria and from Europe. The results were announced during the Zimbabwe International Book Fair on March 22 2013.

Peace

Coarse sand

settles on skin

like faux fur

on soft hands

Zephyr of dust

pirouettes through the air

as mortars whistle in the distance

absorbing the sounds of hunger and despair

Worms festering

in outstretched bellies

care not for who owns whose land

In the fight for power and control

victory parades

surrender grandeur

amongst dead souls

Tribute to Julius Chingono - from Tinashe Muchuri

A few words are enough

I first met Julius Chingono in 1989 in the book NHETEMBO doing my ‘O’ level Shona. I fell in love with his poetry right away. I wished to meet him in the future. I wanted to ask what inspired him to write such witty pieces. It was in 2003 that I finally met Julius when he was an editor for a Norton based creative writing magazine, The New Voice Magazine. I later discovered he was a relative of mine. He was a brother. We shared the same totem Mbizi (zebra) and shared the same origins in Manicaland.

My most memorable time with Julius was in 2010, when I was helping with his stories for the book Together. In May 2010, during HIFA, Jane and Brian of ’amaBooks had arranged to meet Julius, but he did not turn up. I met them and they asked me to inform Julius they would like to talk to him about the project Together. It was after telling Julius about my meeting with Jane and Brian that he asked me to type his stories and email them to ‘amaBooks. We conveyed the arrangement to Jane and Brian, who were very happy with the idea.

It was not easy to get hold of Julius every time you wished to meet him. He would appear and disappear. If you arranged to meet in the morning you would wait, and wait, ugomirira, uchitarira nguva, uchitarira pava nezuva, while waiting for him. That was Julius for you. He would come in the afternoon for the meeting. He did not want to be pushed.

In early December 2010, Jane, Brian and Drew Shaw wrote to me to ask if I could contact Julius to try to get him to answer some questions, the responses to which were to form part of the introduction to the book. On the 10^th of December 2010, the last day I saw Julius, I asked him the questions. He answered the question “When did you meet John Eppel?” with “2007”. To the other questions he only gave me three words. I asked him, “Is this enough?” He responded: “Don’t give people a lot of words. A few words are enough.”

Wakatisiira iyi nhaka

Na Tinashe Muchuri

Ndaida kukurukura newe mashoko mazhinji

Kana nzendo dziya tainge toronga ndaidisa chose kufamba newe

Asi ndiyoka iya yawakati dai

Iwe ndokuti pangu ndapedza

Zvasarirewe kuenderera mberi

Zvakadaro hauna kuita chinyemu

Wakatisiira iyi nhaka

Nhasi yondoti handichati waida kuti

Nokuti nhongwa pauri hadzina akaona

Waiva mutamba nepwere

Vakuru uchifamba navo pahukuru

Iyewe muromo wasina simba

Waisanyarara ukapaona pakanyangwa vasina simba

Waipareva nechako chinyoreso

Madetembo, nyaya pfupi nenganonyorwa, kukava kutaura kwako

Nhasi pano ndorangarira iwe mhare

Waisatya kunyanzi zvawainge wakura zvakanaka wani muchihwande hwande

Navakomana vakapfigira meso mumaboniboni

a-a iwe waive nyanzvi kuronga matare evanhu ane hunhu

kana naYave haagumbuki newe ravo gamba

Poem reproduced with permission from Tinashe Muchuri.

Performed on February 8 during the tribute to Julius function at Theatre in the Park in Harare, organised by the Embassy of Spain to Zimbabwe.

Tribute to Julius Chingono from Tinashe Muchuri

Julius Chingono was one fine writer of humorous poems and stories. He cheered you even at the time when everyone felt the need to be sad and sorrowful. His eyes were so very observant; he could see big stories and poems in situations that most people would see as ordinary. He was one genius of a writer. His death is a loss to Zimbabwe literature and to world literature at large. His work spoke for people in difficult situations across the globe. I felt good to work with him in putting together his material for the collection Together, I learnt a lot.

Tinashe Muchuri is a poet, performer, actor, and writer currently living in Harare. Many of his poems have been published in online journals, such as the Munyori and Arts Initiates, and in print anthologies. Tinashe helped organise the material from Julius Chingono for publication in Together.