Graveyards On Other Planets by Roberto Pastore
Parthian Books
Published 2nd October 2025.
Graveyards On Other Planets offers up a patchwork of epiphanies, missing people, stigmata, Steven Carrington's eyes, power-cuts and the shadow of war. In his sophomore collection, Roberto Pastore hones in on an era of constant flux, violence and grief, offering a kind of bewildered solace with a misfit voice that feels truly renewed. "I attend the reunion/of myself. Swapping out lime water for chamomile tea./ Comb-over days in which we refuse to accept what is lost.' In poems that are self-reflexive and elegiac, yet full of flashes of the unexpected, we are invited to look tenderly and unflinchingly at our own mysterious experience of living, our own "sad heartsong'. Here are poems that feel both intimate and timely, yet somehow beamed in from another planet, far, far away. Roberto Pastore is a poet based in Cardiff. He studied Art History & Creative Writing in Carlisle where he was part of the renowned Speakeasy spoken word scene. His first collection Hey Bert (Parthian, 2019) was highly commended by the Forward Poetry Prize and subsequently appeared in the Forward Book of Poetry 2021. In 2022 he released a poetry pamphlet entitled Absolute Joy which led to a collaboration with artist Rob Churm. Graveyards On Other Planets is his second full collection.
Graveyards On Other Planets offers up a patchwork of epiphanies, missing people, stigmata, Steven Carrington's eyes, power-cuts and the shadow of war. In his sophomore collection, Roberto Pastore hones in on an era of constant flux, violence and grief, offering a kind of bewildered solace with a misfit voice that feels truly renewed. "I attend the reunion/of myself. Swapping out lime water for chamomile tea./ Comb-over days in which we refuse to accept what is lost.' In poems that are self-reflexive and elegiac, yet full of flashes of the unexpected, we are invited to look tenderly and unflinchingly at our own mysterious experience of living, our own "sad heartsong'. Here are poems that feel both intimate and timely, yet somehow beamed in from another planet, far, far away. Roberto Pastore is a poet based in Cardiff. He studied Art History & Creative Writing in Carlisle where he was part of the renowned Speakeasy spoken word scene. His first collection Hey Bert (Parthian, 2019) was highly commended by the Forward Poetry Prize and subsequently appeared in the Forward Book of Poetry 2021. In 2022 he released a poetry pamphlet entitled Absolute Joy which led to a collaboration with artist Rob Churm. Graveyards On Other Planets is his second full collection.
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