Starfish Blossoms

By Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure

"In her latest offering, Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure invites the reader to discover the rich world of African womanhood. With meticulous structure and vivid detail, Starfish Blossoms explores the vagaries of patriarchy and women's hard-won victories, amid the abstractions of love, growth and death. A mu

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Nov 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914287299

Book preview

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by:

Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd

Suite A

82 James Carter Road

Mildenhall

Suffolk

IP28 7DE

UK

www.carnelianheartpublishing.co.uk

©Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure, 2022

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-914287-27-5

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-914287-28-2

E-book ISBN: 978-1-914287-29-9

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

Editor:

Tariro Ndoro

Cover design:

Joanna Swan

Book Interior:

Typeset by Carnelian Heart Publishing Ltd

Layout and formatting by DanTs Media

Table of Contents

Introduction

These eyes can see what they want to see

Tasting heaven

Hanyanani

Italian pie

Death of Whatever

Baptism

This madness is my freedom

Starfish blossoms

Finding my voice

My mother aloft a raging fire

Punctuating the seasons of grief

Baby blue

On the matter of Father

A daughter

When my teenage daughter asks me whether mermaids smoke seaweed

Mother of men

Barbed crowns

Both or none, but not one

Tittering at God’s wit

An afterthought…

God’s creatures & rivers

Coronation

To be desired

Raining on you

The phloem & xylem of my convalescing Spirit

The homecoming

528 Hz

Learning to control a lucid dream

Come play a game

Sugar beans

Fine wine

Tap

The religion of solipsism

Unwanted remnants of a fleeting indulgence

A handbook on reshaping conscience

Nothing makes you happy except the cleansing of your soul

Kissing with flies

Deflated we recline

Sandak

Coochie Afro

Penes chowder

The Emancipation of Haruna

You gotta keep ’em happy

Rambling in the wild

Velvet whispers from orchid lips

Only time will tell

Starstruck by death

Google Search: Why is my wife so happy?

One by one rib stitch

Beast of burden

You’re feeling the juju

Then we do it

Like a no-longer-desired half-smoked roach

Roots of a Shepherd tree

Peachy hues

The pettifoggery of earthly life

Authorised invasion

Thira!

A crisis looms in me

Short inconsequential bursts of information and chirps from birds

Our last game of chess

Next time I pilgrimage to Sacré-Coeur I’ll ask for nothing

Five to nine to five

A midnight cackle

Sun salutation

Thrust me into aether

Passage

Glossary of Shona and Zimbabwean colloquial terminology

References & Notes

Acknowledgements

About the author

Introduction

In the garden of my childhood home was a neglected rockery, haunt of snakes and lizards, where my mother grew aloes and other drought-resistant succulents. I remember the fluted grey-green stems of stapelia sprawling across the arid, dusty soil between the rocks. For much of the year these plants seemed to be struggling to survive, until the onset of the rainy season when they burst into flower. We wrinkled our noses at their unpleasant smell but admired the gaudy resilience of their starfish-shaped blossoms.

Resilience – in particular, the resilience of women – is at the heart of this gloriously vibrant collection. In beautifully observed portrayals, Samantha Vazhure introduces us to the women who have shaped her life: her paternal grandmother, ‘riddled with sugar blindness’, sitting on her reed mat in the moonlight; her maternal grandmother who ‘hands [her] fifty cents for crumbs’; her mother, appearing in a dream, ‘Afro glowing like a golden halo’; her daughter who unwittingly teaches her a profound life lesson; and Fatima,

my other mother in her burgundy-

cream ditsy dress, georgette drop-waist over her dark & skinny form, red

beret perched on curly permed hair overlooking aviators hung high on her

powdered face with cheekbones blushed & best of all—stout scarlet lips

always curved skyward, spitting bold words, kissing my wounds better.

Vazhure guides us through the complexity of human relationships, deftly navigating