Published: 27 October 2022
Page count: 102
Book dimensions: 6.000" x 9.000"
Cover finish: Gloss
Interior colour: Black & White on crème paper

In this collection, Joseph Matose asks how the world of the living is seen and remembered by those who have died. To answer his question, he presents a range of voices – glad and sorrowful, expectant and frustrated, truthful and untruthful, lascivious, gossipy, dreamlike, ironic, cynical, moral, religious, and even claiming to be wise – purporting to come from the residents of graveyards. Between them, they paint a picture of human affairs they can observe, imagine or remember but – crucially – can no longer take part in or influence. A world in which, although letters and words – the poet’s own tools – must be prized, they also represent the medium of lies and inaccuracies preserved on gravestones or uttered by those left behind. A world where widows and widowers too-readily relinquish faithfulness and devotion, politicians are not to be trusted, and men commit violence on wives. Nevertheless, through all these voices an overall message of hope can – just about – be heard: the poems also cite much that is to be appreciated in human life and human affairs, and end with a heartfelt celebration of the greatness of Nelson Mandela.

- Phil Vernon

Inspiration for this book surfaced when I was passing through a graveyard near Mbare in Harare, in October 2019. As I shuffled past, I could feel my own disdain of bodies that once lived that lay underneath. Looking at the headstones, I read a lot of biographies! From the myriad shapes of tombstones, I discovered the undying love of the living for their own dead. Grave Park Poesy uses the allegory of death to speak and appeal to the living, to remind them that there is no utter death! That the dead can also see and feel and think is a gist and sum total of the story. Therefore, I refuse to call it Graveyard, but Grave Park, where the supposed dead are only whiling time in unbroken repose!

- Joseph Matose

ISBN

Paperback: 978-1-914287-23-7

eBook: 978-1-914287-24-4

Published: 27 October 2022
Page count: 102
Book dimensions: 6.000" x 9.000"
Cover finish: Gloss
Interior colour: Black & White on crème paper

In this collection, Joseph Matose asks how the world of the living is seen and remembered by those who have died. To answer his question, he presents a range of voices – glad and sorrowful, expectant and frustrated, truthful and untruthful, lascivious, gossipy, dreamlike, ironic, cynical, moral, religious, and even claiming to be wise – purporting to come from the residents of graveyards. Between them, they paint a picture of human affairs they can observe, imagine or remember but – crucially – can no longer take part in or influence. A world in which, although letters and words – the poet’s own tools – must be prized, they also represent the medium of lies and inaccuracies preserved on gravestones or uttered by those left behind. A world where widows and widowers too-readily relinquish faithfulness and devotion, politicians are not to be trusted, and men commit violence on wives. Nevertheless, through all these voices an overall message of hope can – just about – be heard: the poems also cite much that is to be appreciated in human life and human affairs, and end with a heartfelt celebration of the greatness of Nelson Mandela.

- Phil Vernon

Inspiration for this book surfaced when I was passing through a graveyard near Mbare in Harare, in October 2019. As I shuffled past, I could feel my own disdain of bodies that once lived that lay underneath. Looking at the headstones, I read a lot of biographies! From the myriad shapes of tombstones, I discovered the undying love of the living for their own dead. Grave Park Poesy uses the allegory of death to speak and appeal to the living, to remind them that there is no utter death! That the dead can also see and feel and think is a gist and sum total of the story. Therefore, I refuse to call it Graveyard, but Grave Park, where the supposed dead are only whiling time in unbroken repose!

- Joseph Matose

ISBN

Paperback: 978-1-914287-23-7

eBook: 978-1-914287-24-4