NDABA SIBANDA - POEMS

​A 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee, Ndaba`s poems have been widely anthologised. Sibanda is the author of The Gushungo Way, Sleeping Rivers, Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing, Football of Fools, Cutting-edge Cache: Unsympathetic Untruth, Of the Saliva and the Tongue, When Inspiration Sings In Silence and Poetry Pharmacy. His work is featured in The Anthology House, in The New Shoots Anthology, and in The Van Gogh Anthology, and A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections. Some of Ndaba`s works are found or forthcoming in  Page & Spine,  Peeking Cat, Piker Press , SCARLET LEAF REVIEW , Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the Pangolin Review, Kalahari Review ,Botsotso, The Ofi Press Magazine, Hawaii Pacific Review, Deltona Howl, The song is, Indian Review, Eunoia Review, JONAH magazine, Saraba Magazine, Poetry Potion, Saraba Magazine,  The Borfski Press, Snippets, East Coast Literary Review, Random Poem Tree, festival-of-language and Whispering Prairie Press. 

Sibanda`s forthcoming book Notes, Themes, Things And Other Things: Confronting Controversies ,Contradictions And Indoctrinations   was considered for The 2019 Restless Book Prize for New Immigrant Writing in Nonfiction. Ndaba`s other forthcoming book Cabinet Meetings: Of Big And Small Preys was considered for The Graywolf Press Africa Prize 2018.
Sibanda`s other forthcoming books include Timbomb, Dear Dawn And Daylight, Sometimes Seasons Come With Unseasonal Harvests, A Different Ballgame and The Way Forward. 
Ndaba blogs here: Let`s Get Cracking! – Ndaba Sibanda - WordPress.com

Aunt`s Words Versus Rita`s World  ​

​conspirators and isolators   
seemed to be on a mission  
to thrust Rita into a fleabag 

she felt like an unwanted email
in spam filters, a candidate for
deletion, a masked vicious virus 

as if she had a leprosy of deceits   
she was easily avoided by persons 
she called friends ,family and bosoms   

she was in an acerbic quandary, an island 
where she loved without being loved back--
dealt justly in an injustice and a drippy sack  

she tried to talk to them but none chimed in 
and the wayward way her boyfriend acted up--
signaled one emergency away from a breakup 

her aunt told her that not every day is pleasing 
but she had to be pleased with life and its  pigsty 
that she had to be honest in the face of dishonesty    

​I’m Your Reader

Let your accuracy be my delicacy
Play with them for the meanings
And notable tinkles and twinkles        

Let your words be the guiding torch 
Whose light will shine on the moods
That soar and roar between the lines

I am your booklover, let me love your lovely lyrics
Feel their potency run riot & romance your poetry
Let me hear cheers cheep and witness tears transfer   

I am your reader, let me wolf every well-placed ‘wow’ word
My avid ears yearn for an orchestra of connotations and echoes      
Emotions and intentions; engage my imagination and intellect
     ​