Some poets announce themselves with a debut. Chioniso Tsikisayi has been quietly building towards hers in public for five years, one poem, one stage and one short film at a time. Now the Bulawayo writer has a book with her name on the spine. "Blood Joy", her first poetry collection, is out from Carnelian Heart Publishing, and it is the kind of arrival that rewards anyone who has been paying attention.[1]
A blessing, translated
The title does a lot of work. "Blood Joy" is an English rendering of the Shona word Ropafadzo, meaning blessing, and the collection follows joy as it travels through a family's bloodline and a nation's.[2] The book is framed around a single question about what it means to grow up too soon and still find a way to bloom.[1]
The poems move between Bulawayo, Johannesburg and interior spaces, touching on childhood, loss, love, girlhood and becoming. They take in memory carried in the body, inheritance passed down through mothers and grandmothers, and the ways home and grief sit alongside national fracture and endurance.[2] That map will feel familiar to a lot of Zimbabwean readers, many of whom have family split along exactly that Bulawayo to Johannesburg line.
Five years in the making
Tsikisayi is not a newcomer. When Brittle Paper first spotlighted her in 2021, she was already a spoken word poet, writer, singer and filmmaker from Bulawayo, and a member of the creative hub Cottage47. In that interview she described herself as shy and argued there is "space for introverts in the creative industry."[3]
Since then Brittle Paper has published her essay "Sesame Street: Musings of a 20 Something Year Old" and poems including "Planting is a Heavy Thing", "I Am Growing Older but So Are the Trees" and "Cease-Fire". In 2025 she released "Bureau De Change", an experimental short film that fuses poetry and filmmaking. She also took part in Brittle Paper's debut literary festival, and the outlet calls her one of its own.[2] A debut collection is the natural next step, and it is good to see her work gathered in print rather than scattered across websites.
Why Carnelian Heart matters
Where this book was published is part of the story. Carnelian Heart was founded by Zimbabwean writer Samantha Rumbidzai Vazhure, who set it up to publish her own books before opening the door to other authors.[4] Brittle Paper named Vazhure its 2023 Publisher of the Year. By then the press, founded in 2020, had put out 30 books in three years and made room for Shona-language literature.[5]
Its list leans heavily Zimbabwean, with titles from David Chasumba, Rudo Manyere and Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo, and Shona fiction and poetry edited by Tinashe Muchuri.[4] For poets at home, where poetry publishing is thin and distribution harder still, a diaspora-run press with international retail reach has become one of the more dependable routes into print. It is worth being clear-eyed too. Vazhure is also one of the two writers blurbing the book, so readers should wait for genuinely independent reviews before treating the praise as settled.[1] None had appeared at the time of writing.
Where to get it
"Blood Joy" is available in paperback and hardback directly from Carnelian Heart Publishing, which lists it at £9.99 to £14.99 depending on format, and there is also a Barnes and Noble listing.[1][2] The publisher's page gives a publication date of 16 September 2026, while Brittle Paper announced the release on 5 October. Readers in Zimbabwe will be ordering from abroad for now, so it is worth watching for local stockists or a Bulawayo launch.
Sources
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