The Leper’s Fire

The Leper’s Fire

Have you seen the leper’s fire

flickering upon the mountainside

like an angry eye

on a cold winter night?

From ’The Leper’s Fire’

The Leper’s Fire is Mapfumo Clement Chihota’s long awaited second book of poetry, following his acclaimed debut collection Before the Next Song. Chihota’s writing is infused with melody and pulsing rhythms, coupled with an effortless ability to play with language, shaping it to his purpose with acerbic humour while simultaneously conveying a deeply serious message. In these intimate, astutely observed poems, Chihota makes striking use of imagery and metaphor, with a wide-ranging emotional register. He invites us to meditate on universal themes -- creative inspiration; social injustice; the dreamworld of sensuous desire; rootedness in ancestral tradition; the need to be attentive to earth and all earth’s inhabitants. These are poems that drip ＂like drops of honey from a hive/ when the bees are sleeping.＂

Marian Christie

Chihota is a Zimbabwean poet and short-story writer. His creative works have been published in Zimbabwe, South Africa, the USA and the United Kingdom in anthologies or journals such as No More Plastic Balls and other Stories; Writing Still; Writing Now; New Coin Poetry; Tripwire Journal of Poetics; The Warwick Review and Where to Now? Short Stories from Zimbabwe. Mapfumo currently teaches into Community and Human Services programs at Federation University in Melbourne, Australia.