casparb's review
this is huge it's a real feat in poetic stamina (for both poet and reader) and in many ways unique in VC's work. I'm not able to put it into this but a case study in decolonizing poetics or deterritorialising poetics. Huge poems. I'm in love with (V) THE POET TRANSFORMED INTO SPACE
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L’amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
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sphere gas gravity heat radiation collapse
luminosity color temperature location
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love,
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L’amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
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luminosity color temperature location
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love,
lauren_endnotes's review
4.0
"It is inconceivable to me that there was nothing on the land in the residential area of Port of Spain where my family's house was built, though I knew the construction date was 1971, and some of the building materials from the quarry that my grandfather owned; thereby his ill elder son and unarranged daughter-in-law were enabled to hide respectfully and save face for the family. There is no such thing as nothing.
Our storybooks were English and children in them ran around thousand-year-old castles...our mouths were Hindu and we were encouraged to imagine many civilizations in a universe cyclically created and destroyed; and our island geography, we were told, had been Arawak and Carib."
From "Too Solid Flesh" in MEASURES OF EXPATRIATION (2017) by Vahni Capildeo.
A much longer, sprawling prose poem touching on Trinidadian landscape / indigenous peoples' history, South Asian diaspora and culture in the West Indies, and colonial education models and materials still taught.
Capildeo (they/them) uses this prose story poetry form in many of their works. I read their 2019 collection SKIN CAN HOLD back in December 2019 and realized I never reviewed it here, and that's likely because I felt unequipped on how to discuss. It made me feel curious for more, but I also wasn't sure I was able to grasp it all.
Confronting the complexity of words and forms. Their poems are often quite long, meandering, with snippets that precisely cut back to a theme before meandering again. It's a novel form, and one that requires attention. Later pieces in this collection shift to more personal narratives, describing transatlantic travel from current home in Scotland to Trinidad for family visits, and the emotions surrounding these travels.
Not an easy breezy reading experience, but one that definitely has me considering the diverse forms and voices in the Caribbean context.
Our storybooks were English and children in them ran around thousand-year-old castles...our mouths were Hindu and we were encouraged to imagine many civilizations in a universe cyclically created and destroyed; and our island geography, we were told, had been Arawak and Carib."
From "Too Solid Flesh" in MEASURES OF EXPATRIATION (2017) by Vahni Capildeo.
A much longer, sprawling prose poem touching on Trinidadian landscape / indigenous peoples' history, South Asian diaspora and culture in the West Indies, and colonial education models and materials still taught.
Capildeo (they/them) uses this prose story poetry form in many of their works. I read their 2019 collection SKIN CAN HOLD back in December 2019 and realized I never reviewed it here, and that's likely because I felt unequipped on how to discuss. It made me feel curious for more, but I also wasn't sure I was able to grasp it all.
Confronting the complexity of words and forms. Their poems are often quite long, meandering, with snippets that precisely cut back to a theme before meandering again. It's a novel form, and one that requires attention. Later pieces in this collection shift to more personal narratives, describing transatlantic travel from current home in Scotland to Trinidad for family visits, and the emotions surrounding these travels.
Not an easy breezy reading experience, but one that definitely has me considering the diverse forms and voices in the Caribbean context.
cloudslikethis's review
4.0
The author is clearly an academic and it shows in her writing, her poems feel very thought out and edited. But the way she formed words together was delicious. I preferred the prose poems, they reminded me of Virginia Woolf at times, or at least how Woolf makes me feel. The switching back and forth between prose and poetry threw me off though, it felt like I kept having to switch to another part of my brain. Recommend this but not to first time poetry readers, it’s a dense one, but in a good way.
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