The Sunday Mail
ZIMBABWE has a host of talented poets, several of whose works have gone beyond the country’s borders in that way good verses can traverse without permits and red tape in a way dry industrial goods can’t.
Being the curious type, I have never been one to limit myself to literary works of local writers only, but rather take a global approach when considering what I read.
This week I decided to revisit and share my thoughts on some of the poems in Taban Lo Liyong’s anthology “The Cows of Shambat.”
The writer is Sudanese and his book was published locally by the Zimbabwe Publishing House.
(As a small aside, I have to ask, whatever happened to ZPH?)
The poems in Liyong’s anthology reflect on various situations that are relevant to the African continent. Some of the topics explored include hostilities, underdevelopment and faith.
Born in Sudan but growing up in Uganda, studying in the US and having taught at various universities in Africa, Liyong was a global African.
In “The Tower of Babel”, the writer artistically paints a picture of a civilisation with unity of purpose, speaking one language and acting in one accord. But then come the forces of separation and differentiation of tongues.
Liyong’s Biblical reference can easily be applied to different situations.
For example, look at how the African continent was separated by white settlers when they came and set up their own boundaries.
“The Tower of Babel’ was one, based like a heart, then the sources of discord came, chopped it up and gave different tongues to different parts,” Liyong says.
The African continent has been subjected to various religions from other parts of the world with the most dominant being Christianity and Islam, a situation which has led to deadly clashes.
“Overnight you knew not your brother, now dressed in the killing uniforms of another race, now bearing a new name and worshipping different gods,” he writes.
The poem also speaks about liberation struggles and the work that is being put in to rebuild Africa to make it great again.
Liyong moves to personal — but contextually broad — experiences in “Underdevelopment — Again”, when he says: “Long have I burnt up a candle and wasted ink, entangled by and disentangling myself from, the theme of underdevelopment, under-developing my poems by reducing them to abstractions and arguments.”
The wordplay here is cause to pause and savour.
He proceeds to highlight that although we have independence, exploitation continues and it still slows down development.
“This whole process of subjecting the mind, producing things for master now gone home, keeps us underdeveloped and over-exploiting ours, and our own to prop up a dying civilisation.”
Although some of the poems did not appeal to me, there are several in which the poet strikes the right chords.
I would say give Liyong’s poetry a read.
“This whole process of subjecting the mind, producing things for master now gone home, keeps us underdeveloped and over-exploiting ours, and our own to prop up a dying civilisation.”
