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Cemetery of Mind: Selected Poems
This is a book of poems by Dambudzo Marechera, representing the whole spectrum of the young writer's growing literary maturity. The poems sparkle with Marechera's unique wit, always quickened by his uncanny ability to use language to subvert all conventional cultural and political pieties. "Cemetery of Mind" demands serious attention and reveals, through the sharpest of the poet's voice, the real world inside us all.
180 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Dambudzo Marechera
13 books181 followers "A black man who has suffered all the stupid brutalities of the white oppression in Rhodesia, his rage explodes, not in political rhetoric, but in a fusion of lyricism, wit, obscenity. Incredible that such a powerful indictment should also be so funny."
Doris Lessing in praise of The House of Hunger
Harare, 1986
At home in Harare, 1986.
© Ernst Schade.
Known as the "enfant terrible of African literature" and "Africa's response to Joyce", Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) has been dismissed by some as mad and applauded by others as a genius. More than twenty years after his death, his work continues to inspire academic studies, biographies, films, and plays. Famous for his unconventional life as much as for his work, Marechera has become something of a cult figure in certain circles in Zimbabwe, a country whose political developments have fulfilled his prescient political vision. The annual "The House of Hunger Poetry Slam", which takes place in The Book Café in Harare every June, is a witness to the enormous influence Marechera continues to wield over Zimbabwean writers. Among his many followers and admirers are the Zimbabwean praise poet Albert Nyathi, the South African performance poets Lesego Rampolokeng and Kgafela oa Magogodi, or the Zimbabwean rapper Comrade Fatso.
Marechera belongs to the so-called second generation of Zimbabwean writers who published their major works in the 1960s and 1970s. They constitute a "lost generation" that grew up in a country ruled by a white minority government and shattered by a guerrilla war. As the Zimbabwean liberation war was gaining momentum, writers such as Marechera, Charles Mungoshi and Stanley Nyamfukudza already express disillusionment in its nationalist cause and pessimism about the future. The sense of futility sprang from the ethnic polarization of the liberation struggle as well the violence perpetrated by the guerrillas against civillians. Marechera stands out among the "lost generation" by his experimental, non-realist style, his deconstruction of both 'African' and 'Western' epistemologies as systems of power, his unceasing insistence on the role of the writer as intellectual anarchist, and his attack, even after independence, on the emergent Zimbabwean national identity.
House of Hunger
"I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful", Marechera famously wrote, expressing his post-racial vision that made some see him as "the man who betrayed Africa". Born into ghetto poverty in colonial Rhodesia, Marechera was expelled from University of Rhodesia for his political involvement. A brilliant student, he received a scholarship to read English at New College, Oxford, to which he responded with extreme alienation and was to be sent down in his second year for a series of provocations, including threats to burn down New College. He wrote his first novella, The House of Hunger (Heinemann, 1978), while camping in Port Meadow near Oxford. This stream-of-consciousness account of the schizophrenia and brutality of the colonized condition went on to win the prestigious Guardian First Book Award in 1979, with Marechera being immediately recognized as an avant-garde minstrel whose search for new ways to communicate placed him in the tradition of modernists such as Joyce, Beckett and Soyinka. The book was said to set a new path in African writing and Marechera was hailed as a witness and a prophet.
Black Sunlight
Marechera's mistrust of the establishment and high valuation of individual freedom made him resist absorption into London's literary society. Living as a tramp-writer in London's squats and parks, he wrote Black Sunlight (Heinemann, 1980), and Black Insider (published posthumously in 1992), even more experimental works that irreverently parodied African nationalist, Marxist and racial identifications, because he recognized that notions of an essential African identity were being invoked to authorize many totalitarian regimes acros
Doris Lessing in praise of The House of Hunger
Harare, 1986
At home in Harare, 1986.
© Ernst Schade.
Known as the "enfant terrible of African literature" and "Africa's response to Joyce", Dambudzo Marechera (1952-1987) has been dismissed by some as mad and applauded by others as a genius. More than twenty years after his death, his work continues to inspire academic studies, biographies, films, and plays. Famous for his unconventional life as much as for his work, Marechera has become something of a cult figure in certain circles in Zimbabwe, a country whose political developments have fulfilled his prescient political vision. The annual "The House of Hunger Poetry Slam", which takes place in The Book Café in Harare every June, is a witness to the enormous influence Marechera continues to wield over Zimbabwean writers. Among his many followers and admirers are the Zimbabwean praise poet Albert Nyathi, the South African performance poets Lesego Rampolokeng and Kgafela oa Magogodi, or the Zimbabwean rapper Comrade Fatso.
Marechera belongs to the so-called second generation of Zimbabwean writers who published their major works in the 1960s and 1970s. They constitute a "lost generation" that grew up in a country ruled by a white minority government and shattered by a guerrilla war. As the Zimbabwean liberation war was gaining momentum, writers such as Marechera, Charles Mungoshi and Stanley Nyamfukudza already express disillusionment in its nationalist cause and pessimism about the future. The sense of futility sprang from the ethnic polarization of the liberation struggle as well the violence perpetrated by the guerrillas against civillians. Marechera stands out among the "lost generation" by his experimental, non-realist style, his deconstruction of both 'African' and 'Western' epistemologies as systems of power, his unceasing insistence on the role of the writer as intellectual anarchist, and his attack, even after independence, on the emergent Zimbabwean national identity.
House of Hunger
"I don't hate being black. I'm just tired of saying it's beautiful", Marechera famously wrote, expressing his post-racial vision that made some see him as "the man who betrayed Africa". Born into ghetto poverty in colonial Rhodesia, Marechera was expelled from University of Rhodesia for his political involvement. A brilliant student, he received a scholarship to read English at New College, Oxford, to which he responded with extreme alienation and was to be sent down in his second year for a series of provocations, including threats to burn down New College. He wrote his first novella, The House of Hunger (Heinemann, 1978), while camping in Port Meadow near Oxford. This stream-of-consciousness account of the schizophrenia and brutality of the colonized condition went on to win the prestigious Guardian First Book Award in 1979, with Marechera being immediately recognized as an avant-garde minstrel whose search for new ways to communicate placed him in the tradition of modernists such as Joyce, Beckett and Soyinka. The book was said to set a new path in African writing and Marechera was hailed as a witness and a prophet.
Black Sunlight
Marechera's mistrust of the establishment and high valuation of individual freedom made him resist absorption into London's literary society. Living as a tramp-writer in London's squats and parks, he wrote Black Sunlight (Heinemann, 1980), and Black Insider (published posthumously in 1992), even more experimental works that irreverently parodied African nationalist, Marxist and racial identifications, because he recognized that notions of an essential African identity were being invoked to authorize many totalitarian regimes acros
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 7, 2021
It is no surprise that during his short life, the Zimbabwean literary genius, Dambudzo Marechera, did not find it easy to get published.
As Flora Weit Wild, who ensured Marechera’s legacy is now universally acknowledged, even publishing many of his manuscripts, points out, "the major reason for rejection... was that the poems 'would definitely be incomprehensible to readers in most of the world...'
One can hardly blame such publishers! Marechera’s talent certainly belonged to the top drawer. But of course all talented writers should be published no matter how "difficult" they are. This book contains a great variety of Marechera’s poetry.
Are they that difficult? Some samples here:
"The stunned face of hooves clatters its jaws
Galloping chattering teething mouthfuls of memory’’
Page 146
"A nation in its own surging sap
Its pyrotechnics of photosynthesis...
With tumultuous timbre of a crowd?"
Page 118
And this excerpt might remind one of one of Marechera’s novels:
"Leaving me buffeted by hailstorms of doubt...
Black sunlight, granitic water
Flames encased in sheets of ice"
Page 180
"Fetid lilies..." some sort of oxymoron?
Some of the poems are very political, since Marechera was very knowledgeable and conscious of so many spheres; eg Sharpeville's Blind Nights Ahead. Here we are taken on a rather torrid, intellectually-hewn journey which touches on the likes of Azania, Nkomati, on and of course Sharpeville itself
(See pages 143/144)
In short Marechera, who died at only 35 was a very rare talent. He is easily in the poetic company of the likes of Wole Soyinka, Lenrie Peters...
As Flora Weit Wild, who ensured Marechera’s legacy is now universally acknowledged, even publishing many of his manuscripts, points out, "the major reason for rejection... was that the poems 'would definitely be incomprehensible to readers in most of the world...'
One can hardly blame such publishers! Marechera’s talent certainly belonged to the top drawer. But of course all talented writers should be published no matter how "difficult" they are. This book contains a great variety of Marechera’s poetry.
Are they that difficult? Some samples here:
"The stunned face of hooves clatters its jaws
Galloping chattering teething mouthfuls of memory’’
Page 146
"A nation in its own surging sap
Its pyrotechnics of photosynthesis...
With tumultuous timbre of a crowd?"
Page 118
And this excerpt might remind one of one of Marechera’s novels:
"Leaving me buffeted by hailstorms of doubt...
Black sunlight, granitic water
Flames encased in sheets of ice"
Page 180
"Fetid lilies..." some sort of oxymoron?
Some of the poems are very political, since Marechera was very knowledgeable and conscious of so many spheres; eg Sharpeville's Blind Nights Ahead. Here we are taken on a rather torrid, intellectually-hewn journey which touches on the likes of Azania, Nkomati, on and of course Sharpeville itself
(See pages 143/144)
In short Marechera, who died at only 35 was a very rare talent. He is easily in the poetic company of the likes of Wole Soyinka, Lenrie Peters...
November 2, 2025
I’ve been obsessed with this author, shout out to billy woods for putting me onto him..
February 13, 2021
Marechera's poetry is just as idiosyncratic and shifty as his prose. Off the rails modern, imagistic , tongue in cheek oblique. Some poems read like he is cying in his beer, while writing in the margins of Ovid. Straight through the man's ghost. The Skeletons in the cupboard but sometimes when the joints are properly warmed the ol bones comes out for a belch and a toss. Genius. Occassionally juvenile. Sometimes giggle silly even though
War, Gods, Revolution, Zimbabwae, Poverty, Race and Death are the topics and the content. Machine guns, AK47s, grenades, barb wire, nymphs, Dionysus, pubs booze and sex make features, sometimes in the same poem. Generally a varied and often foul mouthed collection of impressionistic verses from a screaming head. A pleasure.
War, Gods, Revolution, Zimbabwae, Poverty, Race and Death are the topics and the content. Machine guns, AK47s, grenades, barb wire, nymphs, Dionysus, pubs booze and sex make features, sometimes in the same poem. Generally a varied and often foul mouthed collection of impressionistic verses from a screaming head. A pleasure.
February 1, 2019
Pure genius from a tumultuous mind , he's mastery of the English language is impeccable.
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December 7, 2019How can I get hold of a soft copy of this book...
February 4, 2024
His poems are very poignant and exhilarating.I must admit I got lost in finding the meaning of some of them.He was definitely ahead of his time!
Want to read
June 5, 2024Beautiful work.new in poetry and loving this guy's work.
April 26, 2022
Some of the quotes in this collection were absolutely stunning. The author had such a way with words. It’s so well done and put together and I really enjoyed it. It was a good poetry read
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July 26, 2016the best reading site
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews