Ghetto Blues

Even though Zimbabwe’s ghetto musicians have been vocal in articulating the ghetto struggles through Zimdancehall music, Ghetto literature in the 21st century in Zimbabwe is an area that has scarcely got strong attention from Zimbabwean poets and writers writing now. Yes, we have tackled ghetto subjectivities and difficulties through tackling Zimbabwe’s political situation, which I still do in this collection, but I also went further and tackled ghetto as “place literature”, developing voices for the masses in ghettos, especially in Zimbabwe’s biggest ghetto city, Chitungwiza.  The ghetto is a place that changes you in ways that only blues music can manage to encapsulate and like Blues music this collection is both bitter and sweet. A few poems in Ghetto Blues give insight into what shaped the poet, in poems about his birthplace in the east of Zimbabwe, on love, on religion, on race, on migration and xenophobia in South Africa.