Virga

Togara Muzanenhamo

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781800171442
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia africana

Winner of the African Poetry Book Fund's 2022 Luschei Prize for African Poetry

An Irish Times Best Poetry Books of 2021

A Poetry Book Society Autumn 2021 Recommendation

Virga is the third book of poems by Zimbabwean poet Togara Muzanenhamo, following on from his acclaimed collections Spirit Brides (2006) and Gumiguru (2014).

Set in the twentieth century, Virga features historical events woven together by the weather. From the spiritual silence of a sundog during the 1911 Japanese Antarctic Expedition, to the 1921 World Championship chess matches in the Cuban heat, to the final hours of a young Bavarian mountaineer in the Bernese Alps in 1936 and strange white clouds decimating whole villages in northern Cameroon in 1986 - the poems capture stories of a rapidly evolving century beneath an ancient, fragile sky.

The title relates to the meteorological phenomenon in which a column, shaft or band of rain or snow is seen falling from a cloud but never reaching the earth - evaporating before touchdown. Like Gumiguru, which has so much to do with weather, Virga continues with it, its impact on our daily lives. But, here, his geography broadens out to include wider worlds and different histories artfully strung together by the poet's fascination with the elements.

Togara Muzanenhamo was shortlisted for the Jerwood Alderburgh First Collection Prize and the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

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LENS

‘Elite (professional) MVD and FSB snipers are trained at the Water Transport Special Police Detachment facilities near Moscow. Famed special units such as the FSB’s Alfa detachment and the MVD’s Vympel detachment also regularly train here. The school and its graduates get the latest sniper gear to field test, but most stick with the SVD with a silencer. The professional snipers in Chechnya work on the principal of killing the most dangerous enemy first.’

Lester W. Grau & Charles Q. Cutshaw, Infantry, summer 2002

‘To serious orchid collectors, danger is value. Most orchid varieties can be easily grown in nurseries, but the plants produced in such conditions suffer from what one dealer describes as ‘the stigma of perfection’ Their colours may be artificially bright, their petal structure too uniform. Prettified and no challenge to obtain, they lack the sensual, quasi-mystical aura of wild orchids. In the surreal demi-monde of orchidelerium, such plants are imposters.’

William Langley, The Telegraph, 2006

1. The Wolf Gates

When the first shot rang out over the northern rift –

the sky was pale and everything lay stiff and cinereous –

the sun somewhere beneath the horizon – silent in its ascension.

First the boy fell – clutching his throat –

the men behind him fanning out –

some fending off the air with their palms – others cupping snow at their hips

and almost swimming – others crouching and searching the sky but never

finding where the rifleman lay – the skeleton stock

nudging his shoulder with tight coughs.

One by one they fell.

And before the sun had even caressed the height of the forest.

The forest was quiet again. 87

2. Dawn

When Artyom wakes – he finds himself rolled into a ball.

His chin locked deep into his jugular notch. Spine pressed

up against a pelawan trunk. He sifts his fingers through

the warm moist earth and stares out at the world before him.

Rolling over onto his back – he levers his weight off his left

elbow and rests seated with his knees up. His eyesight clears.

The vestibules of his mouth slick and bitter with palm wine.

His heart thudding as though a beast dragged him from his cot –

mauling his soul but wanting very little to do with his flesh.

As he looks up he scans the understory of the forest – a vast

and intricate monochrome sketch of trunks and boughs and

vines and leaves – a grey tangled mass twilight is yet to paint.

In the clearing before him: a nylon shelter cuts a hard dark

edge over indistinct shapes – the taut skirts of a tarpaulin

lashed with guy ropes to abiding trunks. The top of the nylon

sheet apexed to avoid collecting the clear weight of rain.

The camp’s fire-pit glows. A nest of feathered ash pulsing

with a weak red pulse. The warm air above the pit warping

dreamily as his mind replays their return to the camp –

the hike from the black cliffs of the gorge –

Gabriel and Ji-hwan and the guide constantly at each other –

whispering sharply till Arty...