Moving Beyond Protest Sensibility: Chenjerai Hove’s Love and Other Ghosts (2009)

Abstract

Chenjerai Hove is one of the most prolific writers in Zimbabwe in the English language. Hove has written novels, poetry and some critical essays. He has also written in the Shona language. Although, Hove’s creative oeuvre has received some important critical evaluation, most of these evaluations are on his novels. However, recently, critics have taken an interest in Hove’s poetic works. In 2009, Chenjerai Hove completed a collection of poems called Love and Other Ghosts (2009) which has remained unpublished to date. Sadly, Hove passed away on the 12th of July, 2015 while on self-imposed exile in Norway. This article is a tribute to Hove’s poetic ingenuity and an exploration of the poetic shift registered in Hove’s poetic creativity from poetry that defines itself as committed to issues of social justice and whose contradictions would be openly resolved through armed, class, and gender struggles towards poetry that celebrates life through the trope of love. In Love and Other Ghosts (2009), the poet’s voice appears less critical of bad governance as is openly registered in his Blind Moon (2003). This article argues that the subversive power of Love and Other Ghosts (2009) is precisely its refusal to conceive of protest politics in terms of slogans against the ruling elites as one can see in Palaver Finish (2002). Instead, in Love and Other Ghosts, Hove carves out an alternative site where contradictory voices temper with official narratives of Zimbabwe’s post-independence dispensation. Hove’s Love and Other Ghosts (2009) creates its own fictional and poetic context that shows that even in the most hostile circumstances, ordinary people can still organise their lives around those values that are life-sustaining. Instead of merely protesting against the betrayal of the masses, Love and Other Ghosts affirms the inevitability of change through the archetypal image of love.

 Opsomming

 Chenjerai Hove was een van dié veelskrywers in Engels in Zimbabwe. Hove het romans, poësie en ook kritiese opstelle geskryf. Hy het ook in die Shona-taal geskryf. Hove se kreatiewe oeuvre het egter belangrike kritiese evaluering ontvang – die meeste van hierdie evaluerings was oor sy romans. Kritici het egter onlangs belang-stelling in Hove se poëtiese werke begin toon. In 2009 het Chenjerai Hove ʼn versameling gedigte genaamd Love and Other Ghosts (2009) voltooi, wat steeds nie gepubliseer is nie. Hove is egter op 12 Julie 2015 oorlede terwyl hy in selfopgelegde ballingskap in Noorweë was. Hierdie artikel is ʼn huldeblyk aan Hove se poëtiese vernuf en ʼn verkenning van die poëtiese verskuiwing wat in Hove se poëtiese kreatiwiteit waargeneem kan word – van poësie waarvan die selfomskrywing op ʼn verbintenis tot kwessies van sosiale geregtigheid dui en waarvan teenstrydighede openlik opgelos sal word deur gewapende, klas- en genderstryde, met die oog op poësie wat die lewe vier deur die troop van liefde. In Love and Other Ghosts (2009) kom die digter se stem minder krities teenoor swak bestuur oor as wat openlik te kenne gegee word in sy Blind Moon (2003). Hierdie artikel huldig die standpunt dat die ondermynende mag van Love and Other Ghosts (2009) juis sy weiering is om oor protespolitiek te dink as slagspreuke teen die heersende elite, soos gesien kan word in Palaver Finish (2002). Pleks daarvan kerf Hove in Love and Other Ghosts ’n alternatiewe medium uit waar teenstrydige stemme versag met amptelike vertellings van Zimbabwe se post-onafhanklikheidsbestel. Hove se Love and Other Ghosts (2009) skep sy eie fiktiewe en poëtiese konteks wat wys dat selfs in die mees vyandige omstandighede, gewone mense steeds hul lewens kan organiseer volgens daardie waardes wat lewens-onderhoudend is. In plaas daarvan om bloot te protesteer teen verraad van die massas, beaam Love and Other Ghosts die onafwendbaarheid van verandering deur die argetipiese beeld van liefde.