By Orton Kiishweko | Daily News Tanzania | 5 February 2011
I used to be a fan of poetry but such interest is in most cases not able to flourish in a society where such art is not appreciated.
In fact, to date, I can still recite those lines in the famous ‘Orthello’ book, like I were its editor. The only reason I remember it is because Mr Denis Sebuliba, who taught me literature in secondary school, made sure I read it over and over and it was always examined at the mocks and other exams.
However, my decade away from this interesting works doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize it as a very important pallet of art.
In fact, Sonnet, a form of lyrical poetry, is one of the reasons why names like William Shakespeare and Thomas Gray and John Milton are famous to date.
Locally, I have been a to a few poetry sessions, including the ones that used to be held at ‘Soma Cafe’. But with in the borders , my most memorable poetry round has to be at ‘Pen and Mic’, held last week.
Led by Omar Mohammed and Bgoya Mkuki, the crowd was fantastic and proved that poetry is not always dull and boring rehearsals, and this influenced a recent common statement, ‘Who thought poetry can not pull crowds.”
In retrospect, at institutions like University of Dar es salaam, the few names that always came to mind whenever poetry was mentioned had to be Prof Seith Chachage, Prof Issa Shivji, Professor Saida Yahya-Othman, Mr Bahiru Ally and a few other lecturers in departments of Languages.
It was cause for concern that there seemed to be no emerging young poets to push this art to a new level.
Well, that could be changing now. At last week’s ‘Pen and Mic’, Mr Walter Bgoya, treated the crowd to poems from closer to home, giving one in Kiswahili and the one he gave in English showed that poetry is not just about only one language or a conformed style.
The poetry enthusiasts who filled the restaurant to listen to recital sessions played along. But with the literary precision of poets like Mr Walter Bgoya, will the next generation of Tanzanian poets match up?
It is perhaps the same reason that sessions like ‘Pen and Mic’ speak of an element of reviving the reading culture as among their objectives.
Certainly, when talk veers towards the country’s reading culture, people guffaw and ask: “Which one?” It is a known fact that many a person abhors reading.
Dr Lenny Kasonga , at University of Dar es salaam admits that generally, many people here are “terribly ignorant” because they do not read.
He says that even the little reading some people claim, like the newspapers, isn’t real reading because they sometimes simply peruse through the papers, as they look at the pictures.
Such a scenario can be attributed to the current limitation of African written word; a society missing own written local content.
This makes the local society more of consumers of foreign content as opposed to local own content that bodes well with own surroundings.
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Lovely 🙂