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Lovemore Ranga Mataire The Reader
Fresh Ink-Collaborative Poetry (2016) compiled by and published by Joseph Mahiya is a book comprising 29 young poets focusing on growing up, relationships, love and a celebration of nature.

Like raw milk straight from heifer, the poetry contained in this books comes out as warm, soothing and refreshingly undiluted. While traits of naivety are apparent, these never blemish the poetry’s musical concord that resonates in all the poems.

As typical of youths, the issues that are visible throughout the book include the pangs of growing up, relationships, love and an admiration of nature’s natural splendour.

The first poem by Joseph Mahiya is short, crispy and exhilarating. Aptly titled “Fresh Ink”, the poem reflects the simplicity and the rawness of youthful exuberance. It paints a picture of the beautiful unhindered dream full of possibilities of a brighter future.

Poetry is personified as a weaken of expression or as clarion call for people to take notice hence the persona says:

New voices, from a new generation

Poetry is what defines who we are

With a mission to save the nation

Like newly born flowers from the acacia

We are the dreamers of dreams

If “Fresh Ink” was a clarion call for attention, the “How bad do you want success” is more of an inspirational sermon that exemplifies the moral teaching of virtue as the persona takes the role of a preacher or a teacher or a counsellor advising the young people of the virtues of hard work and persever- ance.

The poem is instructive and direct giving it an aura of finality and decisiveness. Written in simple prose form, the poem evokes the never-say-die spirit and also the calls for spiritual guidance the situation becomes tough.

Remember not to go to sleep until you are successful

Keep working and keep praying, to yourself be faithful

You were born a sinner

So you can be a winner

The idea of not going to sleep signifying an undying spirit to be edified by spiritual appeal and belief in oneself.

From dreams and undying spirit Mahiya shows his versatility by penning a much longer poem about nature titled “The Beauty of Nature”. Although the poem contains some few wrong words and looks somewhat pedantic, it is the subject matter that is so peculiar and shows an appreciation of the need to preserve the environment.

However, the poem could have been better had it sounded like a environmental script where all things about the goodness of nature are listed and highlighted. Mahiya signs off with “My Life’s Composer” which reverts back to the issue of faith where his fate lies in the one who gives life.

Tanatsei Fransesca Gambura, who at the time of contributing to the poetry anthology was still at Dominican Convent, is another young, fresh and dynamic voice who penned three poems: “The Sun Won’t Shine”, “One Day I Walked” and “Autum”. “The Sun Wont Shine” is a poem loaded with metaphorical and unlikely similes that provokes the reader’s own comfort zones.

The sun is used as a symbol of happiness and goodwill but it won’t bilge to open up as long as your “heart is cold” or “drenched in a hostile chill”. In other words as long as your “heart” is charred by a “black-like coal” it “will slowly perish and rot”.

Gambura’s musical poetry paints a reality of life that most choose to ignore. The one always hard-hearted always attracts the greatest scorn as the “sun will not shine” in your life. “One Day I Walked” is a poem narrated by the persona in a dream where he/she celebrates the serenity the calming effect of nature particularly “The tree” that seemed to beckon the individual come and rest and nestle in the carpet of “The leaves that’ve fallen down”.

As young fresh voices, the poets are not hamstrung by any form of poetic rigours. All in all this collection, is a must have for both pupils and students at university. The wide array of contributors makes it more quenchable as one enters into the minds of young dynamic unrestrained poets.