All Forgotten Now

By Jennifer Mariani

A life that crisscrosses Zimbabwe, England, and Canada. A self-imposed exile, a state of constant waiting. Jennifer Mariani's poems grieve a life she can't return to, even as she struggles to belong elsewhere. Never far from the page is the reality of growing up white in post-independence Zimbabwe: Jennifer's own privilege juxtaposed with everyday poverty and racism. The poems in this book cry out with grief and rage and loss, and sometimes celebration. Every page is warm with the heat of Africa and wet with the tears of unbelonging.

 

About the Author: Jennifer Mariani was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe. At 17, she moved to Manchester, England to continue her ballet training. After three years she returned to Zimbabwe, briefly working with National Ballet and Tumbuka Dance Company. In 2004, Jennifer moved to Canada. She has been a guest judge for Off Topic Publishing's monthly poetry contest and launched The Poetry Box with editor-in-chief Marion Lougheed. Jennifer writes about Africa, both the landscape and being white in post-independent Zimbabwe. She also writes about women's issues including domestic violence, body image and eating disorders. Jennifer currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, with one partner, two daughters, three cats and numerous volumes of Pablo Neruda's poetry. She teaches ballet at Alberta Ballet School. Her favourite poems are written for her children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Off Topic Publishing
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781777988838

Jennifer Mariani

Jennifer Mariani was born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe. At 17, she moved to Manchester, England, to continue her ballet training. After three years, she returned to Zimbabwe, briefly working with National Ballet and Tumbuka Dance Company. In 2004, Jennifer moved to Canada. She has been a guest judge for Off Topic Publishing’s monthly poetry contest and launched The Poetry Box with editor-in-chief Marion Lougheed. Jennifer writes about Africa, both the landscape and being white in post-independent Zimbabwe. She also writes about women’s issues including domestic violence, body image and eating disorders. Jennifer currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, with one partner, two daughters, three cats and numerous volumes of Pablo Neruda’s poetry. She teaches ballet at Alberta Ballet School. Her favourite poems are written for her children.

Book preview

Preface

I left Zimbabwe when I was 17 to pursue a ballet career first in England and later in Canada. At first, the poems I wrote about the land of my birth were a way to remember all the things I loved: the landscape, the wildlife, trees, flowers and even the warmth of the sun that I missed most in the northern climes. Later, poetry became a way to explore loss. I had always planned to return home, but as the years went by, it became harder to return to a country struggling with political and economic turmoil. I felt I lived in a self-imposed exile, in a state of constant waiting. Writing was a way to grieve a life I couldn't return to and the struggle of trying to belong somewhere else.

In time I wanted to process the reality of growing up white in post-independence Zimbabwe: the privilege that juxtaposed rampant poverty and racism, and the reality that I lived a very different lifestyle than most of the country's population. In turn, I used poetry as a way to accept that my children were native to another land and that the land of my childhood was