IN DEPTH INTERVIEWS: Week of 29 February 2016

An interview with Edward Dzonze

Edward Dzonze: Motivated by the Audience

“I fell in love with poetry at the age of 9,” says Harare based poet Edward Dzonze. “I started reading poetry when I was in grade four – my mother had a copy of O’kot p Bitek’s Song of Lawino and at first I thought the book was a collection of songs .When my mother heard me singing the poems that is when she explained to me what poetry was. Right then I told her my dream was to become a poet someday. Over the years, poetry has allowed me to express my feelings and thoughts and engage with the world around me on issues that concern us all in one way or the other. My writing is not influenced by any particular form or pattern because I write to express and address any situation in whatever form and manner that I think and feel will get the message, in its inspired form, across to the reader.”

“I started slamming in 2007 and it has given me the courage and strength to keep writing because I know there is someone out there, someone is looking forward to what I have to offer. Sometimes I feel like writing is not worth it but when I get to meet an audience that looks at me with awe, I’m inspired to go home and write on. I joined the House Of Hunger Poetry Slam in 2007 and slamming along the likes of Cde Fatso, veteran poet Mbizo Chirasha , Shoes Lambada , the late Tsino Maruma , Cynthia Marangwanda , Khadija and other poets gave me all the experience and confidence a writer needs. I learnt to believe in my work even though I never emerged the lucky poet in all the slams I part-took .The Book Café also helped us [young writers] with workshops in which we got to interact with  seasoned writers who gave us the hope to believe in the pen. The likes of Musayemura Zimunya, the late Chenjerai Hove and Chirikure Chirikure. Looking at the recently published BNAP anthology, I guess the tone of the book is what makes it memorable – the voices contained therein carry the zeal and assurance that in Africa there are always voices that are yearning to be heard which can equally express what seasoned writers can.”