The 15th of January 2015 saw Thuthukani Ndlovu publishing his 3rd book (Anthology) entitled “Poetic Voices”. This time around, he managed to collaborate with one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent poets, Albert Nyathi. The book consists of 15 poems, and is themed “Let your voice be heard, or be the voice of the voiceless”, with the intention to give poets a platform to share and express their opinions and feelings. Poetic Voices was launched online (On Facebook), and is only available at the moment as a free electronic book (PDF file) which can be downloaded at the following link http://www.datafilehost.com/d/040eacdd . The following poets featured in the anthology are: The Holstar (from Lusaka, Zambia), Mc Arthur MCJ Jamela (from Johannesburg, South Africa), Fungai Z. Mombeshora (from Zimbabwe), The Oracle (Peter Zoe), Bonlam Machiha, and Sanelisiwe Emma Mlilo (from Zimbabwe).
Flipping through the pages of the 24 paged anthologies (yes I couldn’t resist the temptation to print out a copy for myself) I was struck by the richness of the creativity and the depth of emotion expressed in each poem. The anthologies that this young man publishes actually seem to be getting better and better. Whether coincidental or intentional, the poems all manage to bring out the theme of hope and love although the style and topics are very versatile and at times the manner in which the subject matters are attacked are dealt with differently producing a richly blended paradox of thoughts.
Thuthukani very creatively manages to deal with addiction from two different angles in his poems, It All Started with One Smoke and God addiction. He deals with the negative form of addiction in the former poem in which he clearly enunciates in his very direct way the disadvantages of this and then in the latter poem he goes on to go on a tangent to his previous poem by bringing out the positive form of addiction, this time the less popular form of addiction in young people which however is more favourable. And then soon after this poem follows the musical and highly lyrical pieces dealing with Her Story and Children of War, before Bonlam announces in a Loud Whisper that Fungai Just Might Be Falling In Love With You and then the anthology comes to a fitting end with a beautifully written plea from a young poet to Forget Me Not.
Overally the anthology is a beautiful compilation of pieces from highly gifted individuals whose diverse backgrounds makes the poems rich in terms of perspectives which goes further to say that in addition to music being the universal language, poetry is the universal story which goes a step further to say that although we might be based in different geographical locations, ours stories are all very much similar.
Unique to this particular anthology is the fact that it not only is a result of the contribution of young people but it has contributions from one of the pioneers of Zimbabwean poetry Albert Nyathi. In his own words, Thuthukani expressed his enthusiasm to having managed to work with the world renowned Zimbabwean poet Albert Nyathi on this project “I am totally honoured to have been able to work with Albert Nyathi, because he is not just an influential leader, but someone who inspires me to reach great heights using my poetry.”
Poetic voices comes after “Radioactive” (which featured Njabulo Moyo, the author of “African Sketches” among other poets) and “Realisation” (which featured Zimbabwean poets who are currently based in France and Netherlands). Your feedback/ comments can be sent to radiocativetuts@gmail.com , or tweeted to @2tukani. For more info about the book, feel free to visit radioactivetuts.blogspot.com
