EVERY STONE THAT TURNS QUESTIONS & ANSWERS – Onias Kangoni

1. What inspired the title of the collection Every Stone That Turns?
I needed a title that covered the general theme (s) of the majority of the poems. I thought
the poem Every Stone was most-representative. There is cause for joy and celebration
when the war ends. Consequently, every stone that turns should reveal sparkling
diamonds. Yet that is not the case. The reality is that under every stone that turns are
scorpions waiting to sting. I believe the majority of the poems in this volume exhibit this
dichotomy between celebration and lament.
2. Some poems are about the war but the poem entitled Every Stone ThatTurns
seems to be a love poem. How do the themes merge?
Yes, it’s a love poem but the personna is a freedom fighter who has returned home. He
has many reasons to celebrate his return. He survived the war. He got a job with
government, He is well-dressed in tie and suit and sleeps on a comfortable double bed.
He’s booked in a room at the Meikles, the best hotel in Zimbabwe. Every stone that turns
should be yielding sparkling diamonds. But no, every stone that turns reveals scorpions
that sting. These trappings of success and comfort turn into items that torment and torture
the freedom fighter. He is lonely. The girl he left behind in Rhodesia has married another
man.
3.The poems are in sections. How were they divided? Does each section have
particular issues?
When I put the poems into those sections, I thought there was a logical reason. The first is
about poems I thought were directly related to the liberation war. The second section for
poems related to general themes. The third, Africa. The fourth, family. The fifth, Yeukai.
4. What are the major issues in Every Stone That Turns?
Major Themes: Demistification and de-romanticisation of the liberation war and post-
independence era. The dichotomy between celebration and lament. The liberation war
was not a romantic experience. The post-independence era was not physial and spiritual
milk and honey for some of the survivors. The poem Every Stone That Turns, I think,
encapsulates these themes. The themes are carried over and expanded, in prose form, in
my first novel, The Chosen Generation, which is a military historical fiction.
5. Bvuma makes reference to Yeukai in His poems. Is she just a creation in his
literary work or in reality Yeukai existed in Bvuma’s life?
Yeukai? Many people ask me about her. The most memorable such experience was when,
one day, I was walking in the CBD, I heard a shout from a car, “Cde Carlos, who is
Yeukai?” I turned and recognised a comrade I knew. She was reading Every Stone at
varsity.
Yeukai is a personna, an overaching image I created for my poems. I made her the reason
for going to war, the reason for the suffering, the reason for surviving and the reason for
the post-war disappointment. But, as the old addage goes, fiction, including science
fiction, derives from real-life experience.
6. Tell us your background and what inspired this book.
Thomas Sukutai Bvuma was born in 1954 and he grew up in Southern Rhodesia. Bvuma did his high-
school studies at St. Augustine’s Mission. In 1976, during the second year, he abandoned his studies at
the University of Rhodesia and went to Mozambique where he joined the war for the liberation of
Zimbabwe. He later studied for a Bachelor degree in Modern Languages at Eduardo Mondlane
University in Maputo, Mozambique.
Sukutai Bvuma has a Masters degree in Media Studies from the University of Oslo, Norway (1998-99).
He worked as a diplomat in Mozambique (1982-83), United Kingdom (1984-85) and the United States
of America (1986-93). He served as a deputy director in the Ministry of Information (1995-1998) then
the deputy editor of The Herald (1999-2001). He opened Zimbabwe’s first Embassy in Brazil, becoming
the country`s first ambassador to that country and the rest of South America (2004-2018).
Thomas Sukutai Bvuma started writing poems when he was a high-school student at St. Augustine`s
Mission in Penhalonga. His poem, The Two Sisters was published in Two Tone magazine in 1972.

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 Immediately after Zimbabwe`s independence, two of Bvuma`s poems, The Real Poetry and Smile
Mother, were published in Musaemura Zimunya and Mudereri Kadhani`s compilation of Zimbabwean
revolutionary poems, And Now the Poets Speak (1981). The Real Poetry was used as the theme poem
of the compilation. The two poems were published under the nome de plume (Bvuma’s nome de
guerre) Carlos Chombo.
Thomas Sukutai Bvuma had his own volume of poems, Every Stone That Turns, published by
College Press in 1999. The volume, rejected by the publisher in 1985, was a hit and became a high
school and university textbook for 15 years.
Bvuma published, inter alia, his first novel, The Chosen Generation, in May 2021.
7. The poem I really love in your collection is Smile Mother. I have the following
questions:
(a) The poem is about sacrifice. How much did you suffer in going to the liberation
war?
I grew up in poverty in Bocha. One time, at St. Augustine’s, I was sent back home
because my father had failed to pay my school fees. So when I went to the University of
Rhodesia, the future looked bright for me and for my parents. But I sacrificed that in my
second year in 1976 and went to Mozambique to join the liberation war. Starvation,
disease, death and environmental brutality were the norm in the liberation war. When I
survived and came back, my aunt wept and asked, “Thomas, why did you do it. “Hauziwi
here kuti uri zai regondo (Don’t you know that you are an eagle’s egg)?” I was the only boy
in a family with three children.
(b) Who is the inspiration behind the Mother in the poem? First, my mother. I would
think about her and wonder whether she would ever see me again. At the second level,
Mother is the imagery of every Zimbabwean mother whose child/children went to the
liberation war. On the third level, Mother is the countryZimbabwe.
8. Can Bvuma comment on the significance of imagery in his poems?
I believe imagery is absolutely vital in poetry. When I write poems, I am pre-occupied, if not
obsessed, with metaphors, similes and symbols. If someone were to ask me about how to
write a poem, I would emphasise imagery.
9. As a poet, which poets have helped you inspire your form in writing?
I started writing poems when I was doing Form Four at St Augustine’s. The poet who
influenced me most and convinced me that I could also write was Robert Frost. His poetry
was simple, matter-of-fact, conversational. When I was studying for my “A” Levels, I read
T.S. Eliot. The Wasteland was the ultimate poem, the poem that shone a beacon to an
aspiring poet. What impressed me most about The Wasteland was the powerful, haunting
imagery.
With time I discovered African poets. At Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, I read
Literatura Africana da Expressão Portuguesa - African Literature in Portuguese Language.
I admired the poets who wrote on the liberation struggle in the former Portuguese
countries. Later I discovered other African poets like Opt Bitek, Senghor, Aime Cessar
(Caribbean), Christopher Okibo, Gabriel Okara, Ezekiel Mpahlele, Denis Brutus.
10. (a) In your spare time, do you find time to read novels and poetry?
Let me confess here that I am a poor and slow reader. However, I do read whenever I can.
I have managed to read Zimbabwean younger writers like Tsitsi Dangarembwa, Petina
Gappah, No Violeta Bulawayo. I have also found time to read Douglas Rogers’ Two Weeks
In November and Simon Mann’s Cry Havoc.
(b) Which authors besides yourself would you recommend in the Zimbabwean
literary landscape?
That’s a difficult question which puts me on the spot because I might forget some
important names. But I would recommend classical Zimbabwean writers like Dambudzo
Marechera, Musaemura Zimunya, Charles Mungoshi, Shimmer Chinodya, Alexander
Kanengoni and Freedom Nyamubaya; younger writers like Tsitsi Dangarembwa, Ignatius

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Mabasa, Memory Chirere, Virginia Phiri; and even younger authors like Petina Gappah
and Novioleta Bulawayo. My apologies to those I’ve forgotten to mention.
11. Constant reference is made to Tafirenyika or Takafirenyikas it somebody close to
you or it’s just a pseudonym for all those fighters who died during the struggle?
Tafirenyika/Takafirenyika represents all the unsung freedom fighters who sacrificed their
lives for the liberation of Zimbabwe. I can identify some of them who were close to me. My
little brother Edgar Tanyaradzwa Bvuma who was killed during the Chimoio attack on 23
November 1977. Mafaiti (Innocent Mutsago) – we did our military training together at
Chimoio and he died at the front. There is a poem in Every Stone That Turns about Mafaiti
and, elsewhere, a short story on him. The street-wise Vik Moro (William Tobani) – we
trained together and went through trying times in the camps. He died in a lorry accident on
the highway from Maputo.