By Dr Augustine Tirivangana

Author’s Background
THOMAS Sukutai Bvuma was born in 1954 in Marondera.
He attended St Augustine’s Mission before he joined the liberation struggle.
Some of his poems were written during the struggle hence the eye-witness account of the struggle in most of his poems.
After the war he attended Eduardo Mondlane University and graduated in 1981 with a BA General majoring in Literature and Linguistics.
In 1982 he joined the Ministry of Information as an information attaché in Zimbabwean embassies in Maputo, London and Washington, respectively.
Later, he obtained a Diploma and Masters’ Degrees in Media Studies from University of Zimbabwe and Oslo Universities respectively after which he became the Deputy Editor of The Herald.
Bvuma’s biography is important in understanding his poetry in that he is not only an observer of, but also a participant in the liberation struggle, which explains that sense of immediacy between the poet and his poems.
He continues to fight using his words as bullets just as he has used bullets to fight for the independence of the country.
There is therefore an unmistakable commitment to the struggle in all his poems.
A critical analysis of The Real Poetry
The title itself is assertive.
It is a statement of commitment insisting that not all poetry is real poetry.
‘The’ is a definite article which is complimented by the word ‘real’ for emphasis. This emphasis brings out the point that poetry (which symbolises in this case all art) must perform a function, a communal one for that matter.
In other words the title itself is a critique of the Western notion / idea of art as indulgence or entertainment, what is commonly known as ‘art for art’s sake’.
The emphasis of this poem is that ‘real poetry’ must of necessity speak about the people in struggle.
In a sense this poem is a definition of what a poem should be.
The first stanza defines ‘real poetry’ as that poetry which is “carved a cross centuries / of chains and whips /… written in the red streams / resisting the violence of / ‘Effective Occupation’.
‘Effective Occupation’ is a metaphor for colonialism.
For centuries Africa has been a victim of imperialist manipulation all the way from slavery to effective colonisation.
To this end according to the persona the struggle and resistance by the oppressed should be the subject of any serious poetry.
‘Chains and whips’ are metaphors of oppression.
They provide a fitting historical allusion to slavery and colonialism.
On the other hand the ‘red streams’ symbolise the shedding of blood as the oppressed sacrifice their lives to liberate themselves, that is to demand accountability for the precious blood shed by our ancestors as they resisted ‘Effective Occupation’.
The second and third stanzas now demonstrate what the content and form of poetry should be – for instance the content of real poetry must focus on struggles in Katanga (reference to the struggle led by the martyred Lumumba in DRC), Kenya (reference to the Kenyatta-led Mau Mau resistance from British colonial rule), Guinea Bissau (reference to martyred Cabral-led PAIGC HYPERLINK “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla”guerrilla movement for the liberation of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde from Portuguese colonialism), Mozambique reference to the martyred Mondlane and Machel-led FRELIMO, Angola (reference to the MPLA ) and Zimbabwe (ZANLA and ZPRA).
These African countries are selected nearly for illustrative purposes; otherwise the poem speaks to the rest of Africa as well.
These struggles, the poem insists, should be the subject of poetry.
The persona then proceeds to illustrate also that the poet’s choice of imagery, of sound, of rhythm (style) should also derive from the struggle.
For instance the two stanzas are resonant with alliteration as in the following lines: “Killings in Katanga”/ “its beat was the bones in Bissau” / “its metaphors massacres in Mozambique”.
Alliteration here heightens the effect of the tone (the feelings of anger against perpetrators of evil).
It also dramatises the action of the struggle itself.
So is rhyming (assonance) as in ‘Alliteration agony in Angola’, emphasising the fact that the suffering of the people is what should inspire a serious poet.
The fourth, fifth and sixth stanzas expand the scope of the struggle from just resisting colonialism to resisting colonial capitalism which exploits African labour in return for ‘peanuts’.
The struggle moves from the bush to the factory.
Here the persona insists that a serious poet should capture the struggles of African workers and peasants.
The persona says “The real poetry” / “is sweat scouring down” / “The baked valley of the peasant’s back / down the starved gorge of his buttocks”.
The quote is full of images and metaphors — the ‘sweat’ represents unrewarded physical labour, the ‘baked valley’ represents the overworking of peasants in drought-stricken tribal trust lands and the ‘starved gorge of his buttocks’ symbolises malnourishment as a direct result of historical displacement of Africans by colonial whites from prime land to drought-stricken ‘reserves’.
Similarly the farm labourer is full of blisters as a result of over-working at the Whiteman’s factory.
According to the persona the marginalised peasant farm labourer and the exploited factory worker should indeed be the subject of real poetry.
The second last stanzas clarify what real poetry is not: It is certainly “not a private paradise / Nor an individual inferno”.
The implication of the above statements is unmistakably emphatic – that real poetry is not about personal indulgence but about public good; it is not about the suffering of an individual, but about the collective fate of a people; and about the ‘pain and pleasure’ of people in struggle.
The last stanza “Viva / O Povo!” reiterates that real poetry must be people-centred and strive to raise the spirit of the people to a future which their struggle will create.
In a nutshell, the persona emphasises that real art is communal and unapologetically didactic.
It cannot avoid being the propaganda of the people in struggle.
Real poetry has a clear national agenda.