Description
Book SynopsisThe poems in Tsitsi Ella Jaji's
Beating the Graves meditate on the meaning of living in diaspora, an experience increasingly common among contemporary Zimbabweans. Vivid evocations of the landscape of Zimbabwe filter critiques of contemporary political conditions and ecological challenges, veiled in the multiple meanings of poetic metaphor.
Trade Review“An outstanding offering. Forceful. Fresh. And not afraid. This offering shows Tsitsi Jaji to be an explorer of the textures of lived experience with admirable clarity of vision and expression, in short, a poet deep to the marrow of her sensibility.”—Keorapetse Kgositsile, South Africa’s poet laureate
“The gravel and gravitas of
Beating the Graves lies in its ferociously polyglot density. Peep that diction, peeps! As this moving book reminds us in its deep listening to our noisy dead (diaspora), any border can be crossed by sound.”—Christian Campbell, author of
Running the Dusk“Packed with a stunning, virtuosic range of occasion and disposition (praise, imprecation, prayer, play, to name only a few),
Beating the Graves is an auspicious debut volume by a formidable poet-musician-scholar.”—Nathaniel Mackey, author of
Blue Fasa Table of ContentsANKESTRAL.
Drought
The Book of VaNyemba Praise Song for Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
Song of Yobe
To Praise the Hornbill
Deep English
BOTANICAL.
The Go-Betweens
Family Trees. Vindication
Holy Departure (A Berceuse)
Dust to Dust
Document for U.S. Citizens Who Have Never Applied for a Visa and Have Had It Up to Here with Those Loud Aliens Who Go On and On about Some Letter
Blunt Balm
Matobo Hills
Philosophical Investigations
Limpopo Blues
Wait until the Leader Clears the Lunar
A Prelude to a Kiss
My Funny Valentine
Small Consolation
Our Embrace
CARNAVAL.
Carnaval: A Suite Liturgy
To Bless the Memory of Tamir Rice
Acknowledgments
