POET Tendai Maduwa, aka African Kid, has launched a programme titled Poetic Licence for poets to perform at Book Café.
By Silence Charumbira
The programme that will have a permanent Friday slot fortnightly is designed to garner support for the arts genre that has been largely marginalised over the past years.
“Poetic Licence is a programme that would see Zimbabwe’s finest poets performing at Book Café after every two weeks,” Maduwa said.
“This is being done, not only for poetry lovers, but it also targets many communities encouraging them to start believing in poetry as a form of entertainment, information dissemination and education.
“The spoken word industry has been isolated to the extent that not even an ordinary audience would turn up when the poetry show is organised.”
The programme was launched with the support of Pamberi Trust and Book Café and Maduwa believes it is a step ahead to promote the arts genre.
Maduwa said the origin of poetry in Zimbabwe proves the arts genre was a way of conveying massages from one point to another, which is the major motive of the programme.
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“Today’s poetry performance is diluted since most of our poets are chasing after bread and butter issues for their families,” he said.
“You would realise that it has lost its lustre because the focus is now on agenda-based performances.
“Poets are now given certain topics to focus on by some funders that push certain agendas and that is killing us as poets.”
He said poets should try as much as possible to do away with the donor-dependency syndrome.
Maduwa lamented lack of support for poets among local arts promoters that back other popular genres.
Poets to take part in the programme include Tinashe Muchuri aka Mutumwapavi, Ticha Muzavazi, Xapa, Felex Mafumhe Mutasa aka Dapi, Mbizo Chirasha, Batsirai Chigama, Momosize and Nqobile Malinga.
“Our next show is on October 4 and we expect a full house. We are looking forward to more than 200 people attending and we are planning to host performers from Harare, Mutoko, Masvingo and Bulawayo although my dream is to accommodate performers from all the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe,” Maduwa said.
