The Sunday Mail
Andrew Moyo —
Another worth reading is “The Ruin”, which tells the story of a girl full of expectations and believing she is destined for greatness. All that ends at a party where she makes one bad decision.
POVERTY, love, betrayal and hope are some of the themes explored in Edwell Zihonye’s poetry anthology, “I Sing in my Dreams.” Zihonte really knows how to play with words. But a good poet must not only be good at wordplay but must also be imaginative. Zihonye has all these weapons in his arsenal.
However, that imagination does not broaden as much as initially anticipated as the poetry, in terms of style, doesn’t change and monotony creeps in. The sensation that one is reading the same poem over and over, albeit with a few thematic twists, could not be avoided.
While I am not a big fan of long poems, Zihonye gets a pass because despite most of his pieces being lengthy, they are of substance. A notable poem in “I Sing in my Dreams” is “I Can”, which revolves around hardship, resilience and hope. While the narrator is in a bad space with terrible things happening around him, he still holds on and visualises a bright.
“The sun is kissing the horizon, its daily journey almost done, a violent storm is approaching, folks scurry for cover, I wait for the disaster, my legs have failed me . . . I can clearly see the horizon, the sparkling green, blue water, sky, lovely waspy clouds, the rebirth, the energy I have puzzling, I CAN!”
Another worth reading is “The Ruin”, which tells the story of a girl full of expectations and believing she is destined for greatness. All that ends at a party where she makes one bad decision.
“She is alluring, attractive, the night wears on, they dance and drink, the atmosphere is electric, the vultures ensnare, complete is the entrapment, life stops dead, mutilated, eyes gouged out . . .
“She has a splitting headache, they inquire about the gloom, the answers are evasive, the panic button is on, the friends disappear, walls thicken around her, the deed is done . . .”
Zihonye is a good poet but I feel like he could have done more to make his anthology even more interesting. The collection is readable, though I would not place near the top of my favourites list.
