Seasoned Chinyanja poetry giant Benedicto Wokomaatani Malunga has produced an anthology which is expected to excite his fans like his previous works.
Here is an artist who is intentional in every verse attributed to his name. Throughout his career, he has made Chichewa (Chinyanja as he prefers calling it) poetry his main stead.
He has done it over and over again. He still carries the same youthful aura and fire in his approach in perfecting a niche that has almost become his trademark.
Malunga has walked the same path again in his new anthology Nasiwero ndi Ndakatulo Zina.
The book, released by Montfort Publishers, comprises 130 poems that portray life in its diverse forms while inviting readers to confront the challenges associated with living.
Malunga told On The Arts in an interview: “The themes covered cater for all ages and they are crafted in an innovative and provocative way while remaining true to canons of Malawian orature in its most sublime form while retaining my authentic poetic signature in its elevated style.”
There is something interesting about Malunga’s poetry. His Chichewa or Chinyanja is familiar and rooted in everyday life, yet beneath those seemingly ordinary words lies a careful craft. Malunga, a veteran poet, knows how to weave Chichewa words into poetry lines.
In the poems, he moves between different emotional worlds: humour, irritation, love, beauty, mortality and the anxiety of leaving a family behind.
This is one of Malunga’s gifts: he does not need grand subjects to create poetry. He can take an ordinary person and ordinary behaviour and make them amusing through language, rhythm and exaggeration.
Take Mawu Umasinira for example. Here, the persona addresses someone whose anger becomes excessive whenever people ask for help.
The image of anger being greater than lightning gives the poem its force. Lightning is sudden and powerful, but Malunga uses that natural image to magnify the emotional impact of uncontrolled speech.
“Popempha mvula ndalandira matope ukali wanu woposa wa mphezi, Wandithetsa mankhalu,” reads the line.
The persona’s advice is ultimately simple: you do not need a mountain of words to say no.
That is an important social observation. Words can wound, and anger does not become more legitimate simply because it is expressed at length.
Misozi pa Mphasa is perhaps more reflective and emotionally weighty.
Here, the persona is confronted by mortality and more importantly, by the question of what will remain for the children when death comes.
The author worries about having failed to invest enough for the children’s future. When he or she dies, what will the children have? How will they survive? What has the parent actually left behind?
This makes the poem a meditation on parenthood, responsibility, poverty, death and legacy.
The title itself is powerful. Misozi pa Mphasa brings death into the intimacy of the home. The mat becomes a place where grief is experienced physically. The poem, therefore, asks a difficult question:
Is love enough when a parent leaves nothing material behind?
That tension between emotional inheritance and material inheritance gives the poem its depth.
In Nasiwero the poet moves from anxiety and death into admiration and love.
The persona appreciates Nasiwelo’s beauty and places her among other women, but distinguishes her from them. His heart is with her. Beauty becomes more than physical appearance; it becomes the reason the persona’s attention and affection settles on one particular woman.
What makes the poem interesting is the use of contrast such as beauty among the unbeautiful. The persona does not simply say that Nasiwelo is beautiful. He creates a landscape against which her beauty becomes more visible.
This is where Malunga’s metaphorical skill becomes apparent. He can use comparison and contrast to make affection feel visual.
There is also humour in his poetry. Even when dealing with anger, poverty, ageing or death, Malunga does not completely surrender the poems to heaviness. His language often leaves the reader with a smile, a chuckle or a moment of recognition.
That balance is important. The poems are serious without always being solemn.
These poems would be valuable in secondary school and college Chichewa literature curricula because they offer students more than literary devices to identify.
They provide material for discussing metaphor, imagery, repetition, social commentary, love, family responsibility, death and the use of indigenous language in literature.
More importantly, students can encounter poetry that speaks about things they recognise: asking for help, anger, relationships, beauty, family, poverty, death and uncertainty of the future.
He said: “I now have loyal supporters, but most evident among those studying my books at university and secondary school levels. They relate to the themes I tackle and are fascinated by my unique style.”
