(picture: Samuel Chimsoro)
+The
Zimbabwe Writers Association (ZWA) are going to hold a reading and discussion
event in Harare on Saturday 18 Feb 2017, at the Zibfa offices, from 12 to
4pm and one of the issues on the agenda is the late poet Samuel Chimsoro. Below
here is a write up by Musaemura Zimunya on the life and work of Samuel Chimsoro…
Most
followers of Zimbabwean literature first came across the works of Samuel
Chimsoro in his first collection of poetry entitled Smoke and Flames published in 1978 by Mambo Press. However, this eminent Zimbabwean poet had
been operating under the radar for close to a decade and half from the late
‘60’s until then, writing and refining his craft almost entirely out of the
public view. To him it mattered little
whether he got mentioned or published in the then prevailing platforms such as Chirimo Poetry Magazine, Two Tone or Rhodesian Poetry. For him,
it never seemed to matter to enter his poetry for the so many competitions on
offer, whether English or Shona.
Nevertheless,
a few people were aware of this enigmatic character. One such was Toby Moyana, the great mentor of
so many authors then, who had not only taught him along with Berth Msora, the
dramatist, at Nyatsime College, but nourished his thirst for creative writing
in the mid-‘60’s. Moyana was one of
those great lights that light up the sky and vanish like a meteor before the
world could even notice the brilliance of the phenomenon. Back in 1970, he put
together samples of the work of Julius Chingono, Musaemura Zimunya, Samuel
Chimsoro - the first two poets having already been published in Chirimo - including his own in order to
forward them to Heinemann Publishers who were by then fully established as the
preferred destination for many aspiring African authors. Sad to say that all of Moyana’s efforts came
to nought.
Indeed,
so secretive and enigmatic was Chimsoro in his endeavours that even the great
Kizito Muchemwa who compiled Zimbabwean
Poetry in English, the first collection of poetry by Rhodesian Africans,
completely missed Chimsoro. Smoke and
Flames (1978), published by Mambo Press, his first poetry collection in
English. Dama Rekutanga: Muunganidzwa weNhetembo, published by College Press, 1990.
Those who
would do research on Samuel Chimsoro would not find him on Wikipedia, even
though he appears on the index of the website as one of many Zimbabwean authors
appearing on the list. However, when you
point your cursor on the name, it is frozen and inactive. And if one were not connected to the family,
one would never have known that this great poet died alone in a hut/house in
the distant wilderness of Zhombe while his fate was not known until three days
after his death. Nor did the news leak
to our prowling press at any point, or so it seems. This is a writer who never found the urge to
join any literary fraternity, not even to set foot at the Zimbabwe
International Book Fair where from the beginning of time all writers felt at
home and always looked forward to mix and mingle with some of Africa’s
greats. Indeed, one can be excused for thinking that Samuel Chimsoro was a mystic, and yet he did,
indeed, live like one and died like one.
Born on February 13th, 1949,
Chimsoro passed away on 6th July, 2016 in Umgugu Village, Zhombe. He
did his secondary school at Nyatsime College in Seke before proceeding to
Fletcher High School, after which he went on to train as a technician in water
analysis at the Salisbury (now Harare) Polytechnic College. Started work in a government laboratory as a
technician on radiation detection before joining the Department of UZ and later
translocated to Bulawayo Technical College and then on to The National
University of Science and Technology. There he rose to become Chief Technician until
his retirement.
Samuel
Chimsoro originally served his apprenticeship as a poet writing in English and
so it is no surprise that his first collection was in English. Although Smoke
and Flames may not represent the vast scope of his creative talent, it is a
collection through which critics and lovers of poetry may peep into the mind of
the creator himself. Chimsoro loved
metaphors that depict the human experience, emotionally, socially and
philosophically. Almost every poem in
this collection derives its energy from this very raw, lyrical force of his
creative vision while at the heart of his complex metaphorical universe lies
the point: the message, the radial centre of a spider’s interconnected mesh. The
following lines from “Leah” may serve as an example:
A stampede of words
Stormed
the pines but
Leah
spurned the sound
For
my long arms to coil
Round
the strained web
Of
the shredded soul –
When
it was too late to gather
Words
lost in the snoring foams
Of
my fermenting voice.
Teeth
gnashed in chronic chaos
Trembling
like tuning forks
Tuning
splinters from
The
cracked auditorium
To
a noise that could
Crack
her cocoon.
Even
then love rolled over listless ears.
This poem
also happens to belong to a sequence that explores the myriad situations that
make perfect love a recalcitrant proposition.
However, lest we forget, Chimsoro is not merely an aficionado of
decadence and passion as some of his poems may suggest. He is one who also lived through the pain of
oppression that characterised the era of settler colonialism and did not shirk
from expressing his conscience and protesting against the system. Thus, the section entitled “Zuva Huya-Huya”
is devoted to the cause of the liberation struggle and there are many memorable
verses, of which the following titles can be taken as an example: “On Waking
Up”, ”To Borehole Drillers”, “Baskets and Stones” and “Colours Grow”, to name
just a few.
Chimsoro’s
next collection of poetry is Dama
Rekutanga which, roughly translated means “The first word”, a self-explanatory
introduction of the author’s venture into Shona poetry. In this collection, the poet freely exercises
his full repertoire of craftsmanship earned from his English poetry to full
effect. In these poems we see and hear
the poet as a teacher and sage, given to proverbial bursts and turns of phrase
to dramatise his message. The following
lines from “Sekuru kumuzukuru” may serve as a good example:
Sei uri shwindi
Unoita
mapusiro enyoka iri kuvhunura,
Uchasvika
pakudimburisa gave musungo.
Kukutsiura
kwangove kuponda vhunurwa.
Chimsoro
published two prose writings, Nothing is
Impossible, a novel and Hovhiyo
neHowa, a little tale. Nothing is
Impossible (1990), is a biographical novel based on the life of Zimbabwe’s
earliest and, perhaps, most successful insurance agent, Paul Mukondo. As in all biography, Nothing is Impossible is a story of growing up. It traces the experiences of Simbai, a young
Rhodesian African who grows up desperately poor but survives the brutality of
farm labour and colonial exploitation through the work ethic inspired by his
family, especially his grandmother whose words have a prophetic ring for all
who would aspire to overcome adverse circumstances:
All
that is expected from us is the vision of the seed, to accept
to
be buried and then germinate and then grow.
You are a man.
Manhood
should be your ground....I am saying this to all of you so
that
you can be people at whom people can point without shame..... (p.49)
Not
surprisingly, Simbai works his way into becoming a member of the Million Dollar
Round Table, an event held annually in New York celebrating the achievements of
insurance salesmen who have broken the million dollar barrier around the world.
Hovhiyo neHowa is a little tale about a wife who, in a bid to pamper
her husband’s appetite for mushroom ends up preparing a tempting dish which has
a potential to destroy the family through poisoning. Written in Shona, the
short story itself succeeds through the intriguing plot which keeps the reader
in suspense, unsure what will become of the family who eagerly anticipate a
sumptuous meal of mushroom whose identity no one can confirm. The suspense is climaxed
when the son who has taken the dog which had eaten some of the dish starts
behaving strangely, eating grass, retch and, finally, vomiting.
It is
remarkable that Chimsoro has not found academic challengers who have the
courage to tackle this most gifted of poetic craftsmen to have emerged from our
midst. One supposes that part of the fear
of tackling this author arises from the tragedy that he has left no record of
any interview – audio or press – that may help to unlock his artistic journey,
his modus operandi, his beliefs or his vision.
So, we
are stuck with word puzzles whose references are not always accessible and
remain as obstinately secret and private as Chimsoro’s personality. So obstinately clandestine that even his
family could find only one photo of a remarkably cheerful face – as though it
was stolen at an unguarded moment - which is at odds with the picture of an
intractable man we are left with. Perhaps,
the organisation of an occasion by The Zimbabwe Writers Association with the
support of ZPH to celebrate his works will help alert literary scholars and
critics and trigger overdue interest.
-Musaemura B. Zimunya- 9 February 2017,
Harare
