Some say there are five, some say there are seven, some even say there are fifteen…stages of grief.  Who is qualified enough to understand the extent to which loss can affect or effect the life of those left behind?

The exit of that thing that someone loves dearly or abhors intensely, prematurely or otherwise, can cause untold distress: the memories, the desperation, hopelessness, the fear, anger, regret, hurt, questions…the loneliness plays havoc with one’s mind and heart.  In Issue 7, Zimbabwe’s poets explore these myriad of emotions that grief brings.

A friend said to me that “…grief is like a suitcase you carry everyday.  Some days it’s light and some days it will be heavy and difficult,”  I felt this in most of the poems selected for this issue.  The never ending cycle.  The forever healing scab.  

 We received a considerable number of submissions and many of them reflect on how each loss is its own experience, that grief is not something one can be an expert at. It is personal and deeply complex.  It hits different with each thing or person lost; mother, sister, father, child, brother, husband, wife or even a pet.  

“A father, a job, a lover.
All different, yet the same.”

says Tinashe Madamombe in the poem Grief demands to be felt. In the same poem there is an unexplainable disorientation; to lose track of time, place and space; 

“I don’t remember how I got to the cemetery
Did I ride with friends,  drowning in irrelevant stories?” 

a kind of state that forces one to question the purpose of life, question one’s beliefs even.

“How does a loving God cause such pain and suffering?
Gabriel Gidi

In the poem Not A Guitar, Iz Mazano tells the story of Maplanka inspired by Jamie Foxx.  Iz Mazano takes us through a journey that suggests the possibility that love can subvert death, not just love, but tonnes and tonnes of love.  After reading and re-reading this poem it sent me scurrying to watch “What Happened Was,” on Netflix, a standup comedy show by Jamie Foxx in which he details the events surrounding his stroke.  Jamie says it was his daughter who brought him back to life.  It happens that while Jamie was bedridden, his daughter would sneak in to see him and play her guitar, and that every time she did, his vitals would go down. A reprieve.

But there is no escaping even after getting that temporary reprieve; death eventually arrives.  No matter how many times one experiences death, there is no “getting used” it, nothing ever prepares one for the inevitable.

“My grandmother taught me to embroider, crochet and knit
But there was nothing in that biscuit-tin sewing kit
To prepare me for when my heart and body broke.”
Emelda Gwitimah

Even when loved ones get sick as in Berveley Anne Abrahams’ poem, Reckoning, death is not something we anticipate,

I didn’t see the dying, in the smiles you dropped so casually,
In the tears you sniffed away, when clouds made you blue;

The continuum of life and death is a roller coaster of emotions, challenging us at every turn to live and love loudly so that the burden of memory does not weigh us down with sadness and regret but rather with celebration.

The whirlwind of  emotions that rocks the bereaved can even make it hard to accept any words of comfort.  Albright Nombekezeli Sade Mabuza ka Dube speaks to Samantha Vhazhure’s poem Larger Than Life, when she says sometimes “…words of comfort are a burden…”  In Larger Than Life a sister tries to create a lighter moment at the burial of their father  but the brother doesn’t laugh.  

“I joke privately that father won’t like the laced boots on his feet; he prefers slip-ons.  My brother doesn’t laugh – nothing is funny when there were six of us once, and now, only three.” Samantha Vhazhure

Loss of a beloved or loved thing can never be easy.  In all of this Elton Ndudzo asks a very important to those left behind

What greater revenge against death than to live?

But how?  Writing is cathartic.  It can be one of the many ways one can deal with the conflicting emotions that come with grief.  If ever you find yourself unable to talk or express how you are truly feeling to others, I hope you find comfort in putting pen to paper.  No matter how dark the shade of your grief, as the words pour onto the page, I hope you feel the burden of memory lift.

Batsirai Chigama
Harare, May 2025