Textures
By John Eppel and Togara Muzanenhamo
Published by ’amaBooks (2014)
ISBN: 978-0-7974-9498-5

AMERICAN poet Robert Frost described poetry as: “When an emotion has found its thought and its thought has found words.”
Through poems, just like any form of art, poets express how they feel towards different aspects of life.
This week the book under review is Textures, a collection of poems by John Eppel and Togara Muzanenhamo.
Eppel, who is white and grew up in the then-Rhodesia, has his poems inspired by his stay in pre and post-independent Zimbabwe.
Muzanenhamo’s work is inspired by his experiences as a black Zimbabwean and his travels around the world.
Through their literature, one can tell the love they had for their ‘paradise’.
Reading through ‘The Hillside Dams in Bulawayo: a Sonnet Sequence’ by Eppel which includes poems such as ‘Only Jacarandas’ and ‘Aloes at Hillside Dams’, one can tell the admiration the poet has for Bulawayo.
“When I negotiate rocks that divide
and unite upper and lower dams, I
feel that I’m being taken for a ride
on some lopsided insect, a moth fly,
perhaps, or a dark, predaceous water
beetle, titled, not by geology but by wind…,” he writes.
There is no problem with Eppel heaping praises on a town he grew up in; one he calls home.
The problem only arises when Eppel and his kith think they can ‘take over’ the country and forever keep it.
This beauty was a result of stripping indigenes of their title as country owners.
If only whites had respected their place as visitors and not let greed force them to want to run the country, Eppel might still be composing more poems about the country’s beauty.
In the poem ‘Appropriating Land’ by Eppel, he reminisces on the good old days when whites still ruled the country.
He highlights achievements by whites as they ‘developed’ the country.
Eppel gives the impression there were no other people in the country when the whiteman arrived.
It was a paradise conveniently set aside for the whiteman.
Were locals not developing the country?
“We did dams, brown roads with middle-mannetjies and suppressed
ant hills.
We introduced fiddle wood for its autumn-stressed
hues and the way its falling petals
sounded like rain. We did
chip geysers, Blair toilets, landfills…,” writes Eppel.
Contrary to what whites want the world to believe, local societies were organised before invasion by whites.
Indigenes had a way of life.
Fast forward to after Independence, in the poem ‘Christmas in Bulawayo’, Eppel paints a gloomy picture of life in the city under black rule.
One is left with a not so balanced view of events.
It is not surprising the poet forgets to mention how whites have contributed to the misery of blacks.
“Here comes the postman for his Christmas box,
here the garbage men, ZESA, water; queues
and queues of the homeless, the unemployed,
the downtrodden, the hungry and thirsty,” writes Eppel.
In the book, Muzanenhamo has a sonnet sequence titled ‘Game of 12 Moons’, inspired by a classical composer, Luigi Nono.
The poems deal with themes of love, loss, war and death.
In the poem titled ‘II’ under the sequence sonnet Muzanenhamo tackles the topic of war.
The poet re-creates a battlefield where lives are lost while people fight to defend their honour.
“The dead marched out in uniformed splinters
through the silence of men’s dreams, men
who feared the worst of what was to come.
Through fields, over hills, the dead marched
their children born to bear terrible histories,” he writes.
The poems are inspired by events that happened during the liberation struggle that birthed Zimbabwe.
The picture painted reminds one of Chimoio and Nyadzonia attacks that saw hundreds of refugees lose their lives.
In the poem titled ‘VII’, Muzanenhamo deals with the issue of loss during war.
“Even now, when she closes her eyes,
she sees their lifeless limbs-
her parents’ awkward gaze
gauzed black with flies,” writes Muzanenhamo.
In the poems, one gets to see the brutality of war and appreciate the sacrifices made by the sons and daughters of the soil.
Up to now, participants in the war still suffer from mental and physical scars.
The poems are an eye-opener coming from the vanquished and victor. They make interesting reading.