Zambezia (1990), XVII (i).BOOK REVIEWSRukuvhute By C. Chirikure. Harare, College Press, 1989, 45 pp., ISBN 0-66925-973-3, Z$ 10,95.Dama Rekutanga By S. Chimsoro. Harare, College Press, 1990, 88 pp.,ISBN 0-86925-979-2, Z$ 12,95.These two publications are an important literary beacon in so far as theybring to an end the practice of publishing multiple-voiced anthologieswhich were gradually creating the impression that one volume cannot bedevoted to the work of a single poet. Unlike pre-Independence Shonapoetry this poetry openly explores historical and political themes. It ispart of a necessary communication with fellow citizens during the processof social transformation. In their breadth of perspective and depth ofscrutiny these poems are committed to the struggle to establish a humanesociety in Zimbabwe.Chirikure Chirikure strikes a balance between private sentiments andpublic themes rendering individual feelings as public sentiments. He focuseson colonialism, the war and Independence. His poems act as a weaponwhich is instrumental in shaping history. The title Rukuvhute (UmbilicalCord) is a metaphor for the inalienable link of the individual with history,society, his ancestors, fellow citizens and the downtrodden African masses.Chirikure's poetry has a pan-African appeal as well as a parochial flavourwhich could awaken in many readers recollections of their childhoodintimacy with the land. The characteristic theme of suffering is toneddown by an optimistic vision of an ideal future society. The struggle for'flag' Independence is viewed as being succeeded by the struggle for abetter life. The magnamimous sacrifices of the heroes who fell during thewar are contrasted with the farcical observance of such nationally-significant days as Heroes' Days which are commemorated in shamefulacts that are symptomatic of social decay. Problems such as the shortageof essential commodities, class formation and cultural nationalism, andthe betrayal of popular causes are depicted satirically.One section of the anthology is devoted to family affairs and villagelife; these nostalgic lyrics compare well with Solomon Mutswairo's earlypoems. At one stage, however, the poet appears to lapse into laboureddidactic themes which preoccupied Joseph Kumbirai and John Haasbroek.Stylistically Chirikure is more sure-footed than many established poets.He adopts popular rhythms and images from traditional and contemporarysociety to reach out to tha majority of the people with whom he haschosen to identify. He uses the 'we' voice in order to present his feelingsas those of a collective group and to play down his alienation as a literarypoet from his readers. His poetry is a communion with his fellow citizens.Chirikure also bridges the gap between the living poem and its writtencounterpart by making his poetry part of actual events. Most of thesepoems were recited to his audience, who are also the critics of art in oralculture, as part of real events. That probably largely accounts for theimmediate appeal to the poems of the reader.107108 BOOK REVIEWSSamuel Chimsoro is more concerned with the betrayal of the popularobjectives of socialism that were enunciated at Independence. DamaRekutanga (The First Promise) is a metaphor for the undertaking made atIndependence to fulfil the wishes and aspirations of the majority of thepeople of Zimbabwe. The poet sees this promise as having been brokenand the resultant bitterness and disillusionment lends the poems a criticaltone. The poems clearly show that the post-Independence struggle is aclass rather than a racial struggle. The poet indicts the privileged few forreneging on their promises and duties, and he encourages people to takepositive action to change their life-style for the better rather than bepassive observers of the growing social malaise.Chimsoro is in a stylistic quandary, vacillating between populist andacademic poetry. Most of the poems begin with the easy-flowing rhythmadopted from popular songs and rhymes in the style of Kumbirai. Butunlike Kumbirai's poetry the borrowed song-beat does not always fuseinto the poet's own composition. The abandonment of the beat results instructural dislocation. The poet also tends to indulge in private imagescoined either from very rustic or very quaint idioms from folklore. Theseesoteric idioms tend to be expressed in very long extended metaphorswhich make the poetry rather obscure and pedantic. The result is anobscurantism that reminds one of the pioneer Shona poems of the 1950sand 1960s by Wilson Chivaura. Such academic poetry is suitable for theprivileged intelligentsia with whom Chimsoro does not seem to identifyhimself. Esoteric metaphors might have been employed to evade literarycensorship, but, whether it is employed for that reason or for its own sake,the result is a loss of mellifluousness and hence a loss of popular appealbecause of its limited accessibility. Such contemplative poetry is not easyto understand unless it is heavily footnoted. The style appears to underminerather than facilitate its subversive role. To that extent Chimsoro'santhology stands in contradistinction to Chirikure's.University of Zimbabwe E. M. CH1WOMEMothers of the Revolution Edited by I. Staunton. Harare, Baobab, 1990, xiv,306 pp., ISBN 0-908311-25-7, Z$30,80.This book comprises thirty testimonies from a variety of women from allover Zimbabwe relating their experiences of the war of liberation inZimbabwe. Their accounts help the reader to appreciate the differentways in which the war was fought and experienced in different parts of thecountry.These testimonies are largely from women who lived in the rural areasof Zimbabwe. This perspective helps readers, particularly non-nationals,to understand the liberation war from the point of view of non-militaryparticipants in the liberation movements. The fact that peasant womenwho are at the bottom of the class hierarchy in Zimbabwe, are wellrepresented in the collection gives the book a strong sense of the viewfrom below. The relationships between the peasants and the soldiers on