Customer Reviews

Cemetery of Mind (African Writers Library)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This posthumous poetry collection reveals the many different sides to Dambuzo Marechera, once Zimbabwe's enfant terrible novelist, who was, perhaps, also a genius. Like Louis-Ferdinand Celine or Basquiat, his fame was all too short-lived and fickle. His life was comprised of striking contradictions (as any artist's is) but in CEMETARY OF MIND he seems to be reveling in them. In certain poems he is a Third World anarchist revolutionary, whereas in others he seems perfectly at home in urban London and disdainful towards his mother country. Some poems are scatalogical, nihilistic ravings-- these are my favorites-- and yet in the interview with Flora Veit-Wild included at the end of the book he appears calm, very very well-read, and wise beyond his years. Some of his later poems are obtuse and experimental, although the majority of poems have very clear imagery and are aimed at the gut level.
Marechera knew which words are inherently charged-- words like rape, belly, murder, sun. He fired on all cylinders at all times. He was as intense a poet as they come; I think the titles of some of the poems are worth using as evidence for this: 'Which One of You Bastards is Death?" "Punkpoem," "Where the Bastard is God?" and the absolutely perfect "Bar-stool Edible Worm."
This is not a book to be read in one sitting. It's too rich for that. And HOUSE OF HUNGER is a better starting point for those unfamiliar with Marechera's work. Hopefully some day American readers will "discover" the one and only Dambudzo Marechera, and grant his poetry the attention it deserves. Until then, consider him one of the best kept secrets in late 20th century literature.