By Pempho Nkhoma

Blantyre, September 19, Mana: Poetry Association of Malawi (PAM) has reaffirmed its commitment to revamp the poetry industry in the country and help poets benefit from their art.

PAM President, Robert Chiwamba told Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Thursday that currently, the poetry industry is not in a stable state.

“Poetry is in bad shape, this is because of the economic environment as people are struggling to make ends meet and artists concentrate on earning a living through economic activities,” he said.

Chiwamba said PAM will continue promoting the art by connecting its members to opportunities and speaking on artists’ behalf in forums.

“The greatest work of the association is to network poets so that they should work jointly in improving their crafts, collaborate with organizations to run competitions, connect young poets with established ones and work with writer clubs in universities to improve poetry,” he said.

He admitted that it is hard for poets to make a living out of their art citing that technology has brought change on the market.

“Since Compact Disks (CD) phased out due to technology, poets have not found a way of packaging and selling their art. As a result, most of them have not seen the benefits of their skills,” he added.

He therefore urged government to intervene and come up with policies that would enable poets to capitalize on the high number of followers and subscribers that they have online to make money.

“This can partly be solved if and when the Malawi government discusses with platforms such as YouTube for monetization guidelines,” he said.

One of the renowned poets, Hardson Chamasowa said the poetry industry in Malawi is not where it is supposed to be due to lack of a platform to expose talent.

“To revive our industry we need popular poetry events such as Chitsinda Cha Ndakatulo and the Land of Poets Festival and ensure that they are held regularly and grow in scale,” he said.

However, Chamasowa expressed optimism that there is an opportunity for poets to make money from their art by utilizing the Internet.

“We can still make money through the internet. We need to develop an official PAM website, which can serve as a platform for poets to showcase and monetize their work. This should have secure payment systems like bank transfers and mobile wallets, ensuring poets are compensated whenever their poems are downloaded,” Chamasowa explained.

A fan who used to patronize poetry shows, Andrew Jonas from Machinjiri in Blantyre said in an interview that poetry has become unpopular since they do not organize shows regularly.

PAM brings together people or groups involved in promoting poetry in Malawi to preserve Malawian culture, educate, and entertain through poetry.