Poets shrink Africa, spread love
AWARD-winning poet Vus ’ muzi Phakathi is putting together more than 20 poets from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries in collaboration for the
due to be released tomorrow on Valentine ’ s Day.
“We ’ re featuring poets who are skilled and have established themselves as brands in their countries. We further aim to form relationships between the poets themselves, which may lead to successful SADC tours, and of course to also collectively market the project,” Phakathi says.
He says the aim is to shrink Africa and expand the poetry market – to merge the poetry markets in various cities as much as this project possibly can.
“All the countries from SADC have a representative, apart from Angola. We haven ’ t been able to get in contact with a poet from there. There will therefore be love poems in English, Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Shona, French and Portuguese,” he says. The mixtape will be released for free download on Valentine ’ s Day.
Zimbabwean poet Tswarelo Mothibi, who is also part of the mixtape says he doesn ’ t believe in Valentine ’ s Day but believes in “good people doing good things all the time, and this is one of the things being done ”.
“Its about more than just Valentine ’ s,” the Bulawayobased poet says. “It ’ s a case of celebrating ourselves, the people we love and one another through poetry now and every other day.”
Phakathi says the project was inspired by “the need to bring back the excitement of love that came with Valentine ’ s Day when I was growing up, so I decided to merge that with my goal for 2015, which is aimed at unifying and expanding the poetry market in Africa ”.
Phakathi has graced some of the country ’ s biggest stages such as the Baxter Theatre, Playhouse and Market Theatre Lab. Some of his shows include
and last year ’ s
Phakathi is one of the few poets to successfully merge poetry with gospel. In 2012, he won the best poetry album at the fifth annual Crown Gospel Awards.
He is also a writer and stage actor. Some of the plays he has written include
and