By Paul Mzizi
Popular protest poet, Desire Moyo has released an album containing 25 poems about the Coronavirus.
Moyo told CITE in an interview yesterday that the album has poems that “raise awareness on Covid 19 and are also imbued with social and political commentary”.
He said the album which is available online has been well received.
“I have also received tremendous support from Zimbabweans in the Diaspora who have paid me even more than I charge for the album. They have said that they identify with the comments on the poems I have produced,” said Moyo who is also a political playwright of note and founder of Victory-Siyanqoba Arts group.
Moyo said he came up with the controversially titled Corona Sh*t album after realising that “a lot of scandals were unearthed during the Covid 19 lockdown, leading to the arrest of journalists and political activists. Some activists were abducted and we heard of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Government”.
He said some of the poems had been aired on Studio 7. Asked if he had sent the album to local radio stations, he said he did not bother as the content would not be aired on “state controlled media”.
He said however one poem titled Dear Big Gun has received a lot of airplay on SABC’s Channel 404.
The album contains a lot of socio-political commentary with some poems such as Dear Robert Junior, Dear Perrence Shiri and Dear Enos Nkala being top favourites.
Moyo said he intended to interrogate as many issues as possible through the album, including the Gukurahundi genocide that took place in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in the 1980s, leaving more than 20 000 innocent civilians dead.
The Coronavirus on the other hand, has claimed 230 lives nationwide since the outbreak in March this year.
