Upcoming Zimbabwean poet steals the thunder...

UPCOMING Chitungwiza poet, Energy Mavaza, has written a 66-page anthology titled Beneath the Sun, which covers the life of Africans from cradle to the grave as depicted on the book’s cover.

In an interview with H-Metro, Mavaza hailed the power of poetry in tackling societal woes and vices.

“There is life and death and a lot of activities which affect people’s day to day lives and all is bundled in my anthology,” he said.

Mavaza’s book, Beneath the Sun, is an African social introspect.

It is a mixed bag of multi-cultural themes and social issues, some previously deemed as unspeakable, some generalised under the auspices of religion, but explicitly interrogated in Mavaza’s poetry collection.

One of the poems African Sun speaks about black people, beliefs, hate, racism and all the darker vices associated with the colour black.

Particularly, Whites are Gods shows how white supremacism is of detrimental effect to the esteem of an ordinary African and how racism has ripped the world apart.

He mimes at the privileges given to whites at the expense of their counterpart’s expense — people of colour.

The book brings out several other themes carried on the horse-backs of various poetic devices such as irony, rhymes and imagery.

Mavaza covered topical issues such as poverty in his poem about the Ghetto while employing advanced satire, making it easier for a general reader to have an appreciation of contemporary affairs while enjoying the best of the English rhetoric.

The book is a motivation to young Zimbabwean poets.

Mavaza’s work, published in 2020 by TafaPrint Independent Publishers and edited by Brian Maregedze, a part time lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, is one great stride that will put the spoken word by young poets into the limelight.

He has single-handedly managed to break many hurdles that usually hinder progress in other ambitious young poets.

Energy Mavaza was born in Chitungwiza on the 27th of November 1989.