Takudzwa Goniwa (Tearsinthesoil) is a poet and spoken word artist from Zimbabwe. His poetry revolves around the central themes of love, erotica, mental health, religion and modern masculinity. His work has been published on various platforms such as Odd Magazine, The Daily Drunk, The Best of Africa, and elsewhere. He recently performed at the Atizay Virtual Festival which strived to connect Africans and their art across borders. In early 2019, he released a spoken word E.P on YouTube titled ‘Sunsets and Suicides’ which delves deeply into the psychology of the mentally ill mind. The project was released in a bid to increase awareness of mental health issues surrounding males. 

In the same year, he was a part of the inaugural launch of a creative residency called Digispaces Lab, which brought together different creatives in the art sector to shed light on local issues which culminated in a mini-documentary. He is currently working on his first chapbook of poetry set to be released in mid-2021. He lives in Harare.

Precious Okpechi: Hello, Takudzwa. Going through your submission for the New Poets series, listening to your performance of your works, I couldn’t help but be struck by the power in your delivery. Tell me, how do you navigate the language choices for your pieces with the cadence of your voice?

Takudzwa Goniwa: Hi Precious. It usually is a subconscious decision. I pick according to what rolls off my tongue most easily. I try my best to be comfortable as possible with my word choices. Reading poetry in school, growing up, I disliked going through poems which felt a bit unnatural when spoken aloud. As a result, I try to make my poems easy on the tongue.

Precious: Your poetry has this intimacy to it, especially your spoken word poetry. In a way, your page poems read like pieces that could be performed too. Do you write down poems with the thought of performing them in mind, or is that something editing brings into the picture?

Takudzwa: It differs, to be honest. I don’t start off writing a piece with the thought of how or where it will end up unless it is commissioned work for a client. It all starts off the same: with a single sentence or thought, and as it begins to shape up, I can usually tell where it is destined for and continue leading it into that direction

Precious: Sunsets and Suicides – your spoken word collection – has mental health as its central theme. What space were you in when you wrote it, and what was the process?

Takudzwa: I remember it vividly, I was scrolling through my Facebook account when I stumbled across a childhood friend’s memorial service notice. I was stunned. I contacted a few people and found out that he committed suicide. I wasn’t even aware that he had been living with depression and taking medication for it. That sparked the whole project. I was frustrated, hurt, I couldn’t even attend the funeral. This was my form of a eulogy, I guess. I called up a producer friend of mine (Michael Musekiwa) and jumped into the studio with him to try and vocalise my grief, bring awareness to something I felt was getting grossly overlooked at the time.

The writing of the pieces was easier than the recording process. Mostly because I had to be in the moment all the time. Steeped in the memory. But I’m ultimately glad I did it

Precious: There’s your Raindrop Confessionals series, with love, desire, and hurt at its roots. At the risk of sounding like a gossip, were those midnight thoughts, or for someone? They did have that specificity to them.

Takudzwa: Midnight thoughts, definitely midnight thoughts. My love/desire/erotic poetry is most of the time an accumulation of experiences. Never really about one person specifically. It scares me to write specifically about one person. In a certain sense, poetry is eternal. I don’t want to immortalise specific memories you know? With that being said I result in having a lot of midnight thoughts.

Precious: On your Instagram page, you have this post where you were rapping; you were really enjoying yourself, jamming to the beat. Do you consider incorporating hip-hop art into the talents you let the world see?

Takudzwa: That recording was my first serious attempt at rapping. It is a lot of work. I don’t see myself personally using the art form but I definitely wish to collaborate with hip-hop artists in future.

LET THE FLAME SPEAK

                   We are a people who congregate around the flame.

The crackle of gathered fuel,
the backing vocals of a service –
its speech a fiery dance that steals the air from our lungs.

Through this ritual we pass down the scriptures of our forefathers.
The tongue spoken by this fire is one of heat,
of fiery passion.

                    This is a gospel of burning.

In my culture we do not have birds that rise from the ashes,

                   but we are told of people that do.

People who shake the flakes of adversity off their skin.
This, however, is not rebirth.
This is an ember baptism
revealing our devotion to pleasure-filled pain, burns that sear straight to our genes
until we no longer fear the flame but revere it.
And we honour our forebears by gathering together on nights like this
when our genes radiate a warmth reminiscent of our ancestors’ glow.

                    We stand close to the heat.
We let the flames speak. 

Accent

It’s been 8 years since I returned.
But just like then,
I still wrestle my language to the floor,
beaten into submission until it fits in my mouth – awkward,
ready to tap out at the slightest provocation.

My cousins often pinch me to see how much diaspora suffused into my skin.
It’s funny how you aren’t considered black if you’re not as black as the local black.

This accent is treated as an invasive species.
My speech,
proof that colonial rule still exists.
My lips,
a case study.
My tongue, 
a specimen they pit against native inflections.

I rarely win this dogfight – 
my tongue is a puppy surrounded by hounds,
gently wagging its tail,
hoping one day to be a good boy.