Frankfurt Buchmesse.2:
"Yes, Yes"

Dateline: 11/11/97

The language you hear all day, “Yes, yes”
The language of business and court records, “Yes, yes”
Sophisticated, well-calculated negotiations, “Yes, yes”
The language of deals going down at the Hamburg Book Fair, “Yes, yes”
Late at night    in the bedroom
Language whispered, “Darling, yes, yes”
And in Heaven, who knows
Maybe you’ll hear “Yes, yes”

Chirikure Chirikure is a leading poet in Zimbabwe. He writes poetry exclusively in Shona, and performs -- passionately -- with mbira (“thumb piano”) accompaniment. In Frankfurt he performed mainly in English, improvising translations, dancing when the Book Fair loudspeaker rattled the hall. I’m reproducing his English without the repetitions of lines.

He was backed in Frankfurt by his sister, Virginia, who played mbira and occasionally sang in a rich contralto. Chirikure also performs with mbira bands, and with other instruments as well. He attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1990. His first book is called Rukuvhute (Umbilical Cord). It was awarded the Zimbabwe Writer of the Year Award.

--Bob Holman

You can order Chirikure's Chamupururi (1994: College Press Publishers, Zimbabwe) from African Imprint Library Services in Portland, Maine.

If you're interested in the academics of "metapoetry", you might want to read Stephen Finn's essay, "Transcolonial Metapoetry in South Africa" (from the Journal of the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Murdoch University, Australia) -- in which Chirikure is briefly mentioned.

Chirikure is not in it, but the University of Cape Town's big Poetry Web site is well worth a visit. You'll find selected poems by South African poets like Dennis Brutus & Keorapetse Kgositsile as well as foreign visitors to Cape Town like Nancy Morejón from Cuba, Manuel Alegre from Portugal & Joy Howard from the US.

Or go to next year's Zimbabwe International Book Fair, find Chirikure at the College Press Publishers booth, & ask him for a poem. (Sometimes live is all there is, you have to go a long way to get it, & it's finer than any virtual representation. . . )

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