doublespeakmag

Ndaba Sibanda’s poem: What You Perceive Is What You Believe

Was it a poem, a story, a parent, a teacher, a song or a book

that rewired how you imagine the future? How do you look

at yourself and the world? Did it transform your visual and cultural

landscape? How do you see the future? In a positive light? Is it spiritual?


Commentary  By Qinisela Possent Ndlovu

For the first time in Zimbabwe, through Ndaba Sibanda’s poem ‘ What You Perceive Is What You Believe',  we encountered a philosophical poet who asked powerful questions. The powerful questions centred on thoughts, human life and conditions, existence and morality. The questions were rhetorical and ‘double-barrelled’. For instance, ‘what you perceive is what you believe’  could be read vice versa. What you believe is what you perceive. ‘Believe’ sounded internal and ‘perceive’ external; one could shape what they perceived through belief and what you believed could be shaped by perceptions. The questions underlined the philosophical and rhetorical nature of Ndaba Sibanda’s poetry:

How do you look

at yourself and the world?  Did

it transform your visual and

cultural landscape?

How do you see the future?  In a positive light?

Is it spiritual?



Hailing from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, Ndaba Sibanda is a poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer who has a passion for themes and topics around conservation, nature, development and justice. A three-time Pushcart, National Arts Merit Awards, Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize and the Best of the Net Prose nominee, Sibanda`s 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 novel Cabinet Meetings: Of Big And Small Preys was considered for The Graywolf Press Africa Prize 2018. His five titlesare on the Barnes and Noble list of 2024 Best books. 

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