Poem

Tari Mtetwa

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Original language

THE OLD SCHOOL

THE OLD SCHOOL

THE OLD SCHOOL

In the old country school
under the cool of the tree
I scribbled
on the dust’s pages

and the wind
my unfailing teacher
blew away my wrongs
and whispered corrections

and mother tilling the soil
to philosophy’s depth
unearthed syllabi
to school my eager eye

the enduring sun
shifting the shade’s course
moved me from class to class
to my graduation

© 2011, Tari Mtetwa
Publisher: First published on PIW,

Tari Mtetwa

Tari Mtetwa

(Zimbabwe, 1982)

Tarisai Witness Mtetwa was born at St Augustine’s Mission near Mutare, and had a largely rural upbringing. He attended both primary and secondary school at St Augustine’s. Mtetwa began writing poetry at high school. “Even though I was not in a literature class,” he says, “I earnestly read all the books that fellow students were studying. I then developed an interest in literature, poetry in par...

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Poems of Tari Mtetwa

NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE A RIVER

First

Naked

GRAVE-DEEP WHISTLER

Rock

Here

WITHOUT-A-NAME

POTTER’S SONG

Outside

OLD SCHOOL JAM SESSION ON RADIO

Close

THE OLD SCHOOL

In the old country school
under the cool of the tree
I scribbled
on the dust’s pages

and the wind
my unfailing teacher
blew away my wrongs
and whispered corrections

and mother tilling the soil
to philosophy’s depth
unearthed syllabi
to school my eager eye

the enduring sun
shifting the shade’s course
moved me from class to class
to my graduation

THE OLD SCHOOL

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