Becoming The Muse

Guest Post by Godess

“Are you aware that Godess is supposed to be spelt Goddess?” asked my white South African editor in an email.

A poetry magazine had accepted two of my poems from my collection To Murder A Country ( I really ought to call it the Sunday Collection, pun not intended, because I stopped going to church on Sundays between October and November last year so I could write and finish this collection. But subtlety has never been truly mine.)

So this was the editor asking me this question. I am all for questions rather than assumptions on any day.

But…..

I do not know if it’s a cultural difference or if it is something else altogether but I have noted that our white African brothers and sisters have a tendency to ask questions that can be quite offensive, for lack of a milder word. It may of course be because recently I have become heightened and sensitive to the subtle racial tensions in this country.

Still, I remember being asked on two separate occasions by random white women if the kids that I was walking around the shops with were all mine. On both occasions I had one extra child, either belonging to a friend or family member. The first time I laughed it off and explained that one of the kids was not mine. But the second time alarm bells rang loudly in my head and I felt the invisible hairs on the back of my neck rising and standing on their legs and some heat rushing to my face.

‘Yes they are all mine.’ I replied stonily and continued, ‘Did you have something to say say ?

‘I just wanted to say you are brave,’ she said and I didn’t respond to her again.

So my editor’s question could have thrown me off a bit but like I have said this guy was going to publish my poems. Hence my happiness.

This emotion is important to note because it influenced the manufacturing of my response to my editor. It is because of this emotion that I didn’t respond in either of the following terms that are readily at my fingertips when it comes to these things.

On my thumb’s fingertip was this response;
‘Umm, you know I had an “A” in English Literature at  A Level as well as at O Level. Surely I would know the correct spelling for goddess.’

On my index finger’s tip was this response;
“I studied English for my first degree. Academically called BA Honours in English. And the Honours was by merit.’

On my middle finger’s tip was this response;
“So you think I do not see MS Word and Google’s autocorrect indicating that Godess is a wrong spelling in bright red every single time I type my name? “

On my ring finger’s tip was this response;
”I am a recipient of small but significant writing awards in my country. I won the Norma Kitson Short Story Award in 2012 and Konrad Adneur Best Short Story in Writing Mystery and Mayhem and you think I wouldn’t know the correct spelling for goddess?”

On my pinkie’s finger tips was this response;
“I went to school at the age of 4 with my sister who was 5 years old. My mother’s intention was for me to repeat Grade 1 the following year but my teacher Mrs Muteve said no one speaks English in this class better than Godess (I told you our rural teachers knew what they were doing back then). And you think I wouldn’t know how to spell goddess “

Need I go on?

But thank God (not thank Godness please), I was feeling happy, so these responses did not get the opportunity to leave my finger tips to travel in haste to the keyboard where they are destined for.

Instead I scrounged around and found some humor in his unassuming question and said that it is very common to have a wrongly spelt name in Zimbabwe.

Am I wrong in saying this? Or you have never heard of an Anus who was supposed to be Anos. Not that Anos is in itself an undebatable name but I am the least qualified person to talk about that . But we all know that we Zimbabwean people have come together and agreed that this name that I cannot mention twice was supposed to be Anos.

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This is a two part post also check out Chronicles of Living Life With a Wrongly Spelt Name (I)

About The Author

Godess Bvukutwa Chawatama is a Feminist Thinker. Writer. Fierce Mom.

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