An Interview with John Eppel
1: Describe yourself in five words?
A left-handed European African.
2: What is your most treasured possession?
I can’t say my children because they aren’t possessions so I’ll settle for my house in Bulawayo.
3: Do you have any strange hobbies?
Yes: listening to historical recordings of opera.
4: What is your greatest fear?
My children and grandchildren getting hurt.
5: What were you like at school?
Uninterested.
8: What are you doing next?
Working intermittently on another novel.
9. Your ex-wife was involved in poetry earlier. How much did you inspire each other back then?
I don’t know if ‘inspire’ is the right word but we certainly supported each other in our creative efforts. Shari was the first Zimbabwean poet to publish a piece on the Fifth Brigade atrocities, a poem called ‘Bhalagwe’, which was published in the first of ‘amaBooks’ ‘Short Writings’ series. That was extremely brave of her.
10. Can you tell us about your initial encounters with poetry, and initial impressions with writing? What traditions and cultures, writers and artists you have studied and how have these shaped your writing. Tell us about the writing scene in your country.
To start at the end, the writing scene in Zimbabwe is vibrant, especially among the younger generation who are less inclined to censor themselves, more inclined to ridicule those in power who abuse it.
My initial encounters with poetry, as I have said before, were at my segregated primary school where we were mislead by nostalgic expatriates from all corners of Great Britain. However, I loved the poetry they introduced to us, mainly from the Georgian era - poets like Alfred Noyes, John Masefield, and Walter de la Mare. I loved them for their lyricism, and that influence is with me today. Poetry shares content with philosophy, history, religion, psychology, politics… it is nothing special; but poetry’s form is its own.
I got to African literature too late - in my twenties - for it to have much of an influence on my writing. But I was steeped in English literature. The first place I wanted to visit when I finally got to England was Kensington gardens - the world of Peter Pan!
11: Give us an overview of your published work. What are the issues at the centre of your writing and why
I’ve always considered myself more of a poet than a prose writer even though I’ve published more prose than poetry. I first started to get published in the late 60s, along with contemporaries like Charles Mungoshi, Musaemura Zimunya, and the late Julius Chingono. Well, I’m still getting published, still in a fairly unobtrusive way, 50 years later. If I include collaborations, I have had, in that time about 18 books of poetry and prose published.
Most of my prose is satirical, hence its limited appeal; most of my poems are lyrical, with a slightly less limited appeal.
12. What is your writing process?
Poetry comes to me; I go to prose.
13. Of the older generation of writers you have collaborated with other writers across cultures in Zimbabwe more than many of your contemporaries, why. What do you enjoy about these collaborative endeavors and how do you go about it
Poets are kindred spirits. We can sit for hours together without having to say a word, though words are our game. But of course, it’s more than that. I’m proud to be published alongside black writers whose work I admire; and I’m grateful too, that after a long dry season I am beginning to be accepted as a Zimbabwean writer.
14. Tell us about your poems in Zimbolicious Poetry Anthology 2016
I think they are typical of my style, and indicate that my subject matter is variable.
15: If you were a poem, what form will you be in?
The sonnet of course. Ask PAN.
