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Beaven Tapureta Bookshelf
Having worked with budding writers for quite a long time now, I can say with conviction that it seems poetry is the forte for starters. Many of the new writers empty their feelings and ideas largely through written poetry and those who have actually discovered their gift in spoken word go a step further in dreaming to have their works recorded, that is, their poems

fused with music, a route already proven possible by some of our established poets.

However, I have met unpublished poets who, realizing perhaps they cannot perform their poems, have asked the curious question: I have written so many poems (and songs as well), but are there musicians out there willing to accommodate the work of poets in their productions?

There must be a way indeed!

Meanwhile, I urge them to learn instruments and be singers of their own poems! I say so because it is rare in our country to speak of opportunities for songwriters who are not singers. Almost all our musicians are songwriters who have sung their own lyrics and therefore do not need a poet to write them lyrics. Almost all our notable musicians add “songwriter” to their titles.

If they are songwriters, are they also aware of the fact that they are incorporating, in their compositions, skills and devices similar to those at the disposal of the poet?

If they are aware of poetry, has it ever occurred to them that they can make use of the large pool of young poets in the country? Does this “bond” between poet and musician take away something from one artist and benefit the other? Why are poets not as popular as lyricists?

I am not a music referee but the “noise” that got around Alick Macheso’s latest album “Tsoka Dzerwendo” got me remembering a conversation that occasionally looms up among writers. Often cited is the relationship between Musaemura Zimunya and the late musician Marshal Munhumumwe. Though little facts exist, it is believed Zimunya, a lecturer and renowned writer/poet had a “stake” in one or two of Munhumumwe’s songs. One is a renowned writer/poet and the other is an equally celebrated musician.

Another story is that of poet Chirikure Chirikure to whom the title “songwriter” is also affixed. His “Napukeni” album which he did with the group DeteMbira in 2002 is enough to explain the poet/songwriter natural “being-ness”. It is also known that Chirikure “has written lyrics for a number of leading Zimbabwean musicians”.

Why has it become rare today to hear of a local musician saying he/she has read “Bhuku Risina Basa” by Memory Chirere and has felt he/she need to sing such and such a poem? Or that he/she has browsed through “Dzinonyandura” and has been gripped by a certain poem so deeply that he/she wants to sing it? One should alert the musicians that they can make use of the poets around them for surely, where such bonds exist, the credit, not always the money, given to the poet, will go a long way in promoting him/her and thereby, indirectly perhaps, taming the savage costs of piracy rocking the music and book industries!

Looking at the poet-singer relationship, I am drawn to think deeply about why in Zimbabwe such collaborations are not common or celebrated.

It seems poets and songwriters/musicians are trying to eliminate each other rather than collaborate. There is the belief on the part of musicians that poetry should mind its own business in the academia and not in “popular culture” or in the society.

The latest album by all-time Sungura king Macheso has no doubt been well received by lots of people on the basis of maturity of both rhythm and message.

Are Macheso’s magnificent songwriting skills not the skills of a great poet? Why can’t poets reach that level of ‘commercialism’ associated with songwriters? More and more questions linger and more and more answers are thrust to us from different standpoints it would be tiresome to talk about all of them here.

Think of world stars like Bob Dylan or Bob Marley. It is widely accepted that Dylan was a poet first. What draws such great attention to their music or the music, say of superstar Marley or our own guru Oliver Mtukudzi? In the Zim-dancehall era we have seen a gradual improvement from songs overcast with lyrics about degrading fellow artists, songs of rivalry, drugs, sex and money to well thought out lyrics which get every passenger meditating on life when played in a kombi or private car on the way to work or back to town. Have the Zim-dancehall artists, those that started out ‘badly’ in lyrics, been reading poetry?

Internationally, the evidence is there for all to see that poets can indeed be partners of musicians or can lift their poetry to the same level of appeal which music has.

Poet and songwriter Rod McKuen who passed on last year aged 81 is often said to have been “one of the best-selling poets in history, the prolific force in popular culture who captivated those who did not ordinarily like poetry”. (The Guardian)

Bruce Ndlovu, writing for the B-Metro (Zimbabwe), once observed that: While some artistes employ the services of other writers to pen their songs for them, a recent example being world stars Nicki Minaj and Beyonce who used little know SZA to write part of the Bit Boy produced song “Feeling Myself”, some artistes are known as much for their skill on the mic or instruments as much as the power of their pens.

The truth could be that music benefits more from the principles of poetry. Both poets and songwriters use tone and mood, emotion, rhythm and tempo.

They both use assonance and rhyme. They both are guided by some kind of “musicality”. Be that as it may, there is also unending debates about the differences between the two forms of expression.

The outstanding call being made here is to have local poets and musicians working together. Poets listen to music but musicians should also read poetry and collaborate often!