Poetrama Magazine Issue 2 April 2021 (2)

The support I got from the team was amazing. From
there doors opened. Before 2015 I had never
organized an event, doors would just open it was like
the Lord would just nudge them and they'd open.
The only thing that I did that I had to organize
myself was my live DVD recording in 2015 at
Crowne Plaza now Monomutapa Hotel which was
breathtaking we had 250 people come out. It was
humbling to find people gather like that to come
and support me so it's been quite a journey. I've
done HIFA without needing to apply, A Shoko
Festival representative Upmost approached me to
do the slam. Shoko Festival was curating the poetry
slam and he said the most unreal thing, "Umind?!
would you want to be part of the slam we think
you'd be awesome so please come through we'll pay
you." I did HIFA then, that same year I also did the
Color of Truth is Grey with the National Ballet
Association of Zimbabwe and Rolx dance crew, we
did 2 shows at Reps Theatre that were sold out and I
did the narration. I wrote the whole script in poetry,
became the storyteller for the production and we
did the collaboration.. It was phenomenal. I still
watch that DVD and I can't believe that I did fifty
minutes on stage without missing a line, it was crazy.
I've toured South Africa twice with South Roots
International a performing Arts Organization I am
part of based in Cape Town and Island Breeze
international based in Kansas City.
TZ: Looking at where you are right now, the things
you have achieved, where you are coming from
makes sense. You had quite the warm welcome into
the spoken word scene, did this in any way inspire
you to do the same and go on to be the founder of
Page Poetry Alive.
PS: The stages I performed at were surreal
opportunities, I think that's as warm as I would say it
was. I faced a lot of challenges when I started I'd
have people shouting in the audience, we don't want
Bible why are you speaking Bible? Why do you
speak gospel? I remember I had some very
experienced poets, people that I respected shout out
at me when I was on stage because they didn't agree
with my content. It was something they didn't want
to have so blatantly put in front of them but the
same people have come back to me and have
mentioned that they have such huge amounts of
respect for me. We have sat down and collaborated,
we have worked together. It's humbling, it's amazing
to see what standing for what you believe in can do.
Because of that, I think I've always wanted to be able to
give someone what I had and what I didn't have. In the
spoken word circles that we had, we had no one paving
the way for us especially with the sort of content we
were carrying. We didn't have a lot of platforms that
would specifically want to welcome us, we had to go
out into the world first then get welcomed back into
the church so we did not start in church we went out
and got applauded by the world before the church
noticed us. Before concerts and conferences even
solicited invites we were invited into pubs and bars,
corporate functions and later on the church opened up
to us and it became a thing that we could go and
minister in this way as it were because it was now being
seen as a ministry but when we started it was a roller
coaster there were lots of questions around what we
were doing. I do not believe that there is a sacred and a
secular but that's another conversation for another day
but I felt the need to say that. Somebody coming after
me must have it easier than I did. We had to pioneer a
lot to get to where we are, we did not have many spaces
when the Book Cafe closed, we had nothing, we had to
start creating our platforms if we wanted to survive and
I noticed that so many people in arts died out, some
gave up and went back to find a regular job, a 9 to 5.
Page Poetry Alive came out of another step of
obedience as in most of my stories, I was praying and it
wasn't even intentional. I had been asking the Lord
about my poems which were getting super long, I
remember I had a poem that was 15 minutes long and
another that was 20 minutes long and I was asking the
Lord where I would get all these poems performed?
Who would want to hear them and God said to me,
"You know what, why don't you start reading?" I
thought to myself "I don't read, I'm a spoken word
artist!" at that time I thought reading was lazy. I did not
see the point of doing page poetry. I didn't see myself
as a page poet, I didn't think it takes any work to be a
page poet until I got some knowledge and realized that
I loved page poetry. I loved performing outside of
slams and I was more comfortable as a performing
spoken word artist than a slammer so, in the end, I gave
up slamming and started focusing more on being a
commercial poet so I started doing a lot more
corporate functions.
TZ: Yours is one of the most unique and inspiring
come-up stories I have come across. It really is. What
are some of the challenges you have faced along the
way?
PS: Well, along the way I have had to deal with losses
and I think most of them have been the issue of
content. I put out a live DVD recording and 250 people
came out to this live DVD recording but unfortunately,
the videographer who took the footage had an
unfortunate incident with his hard drive and we lost
that footage in its entirety.