ceallaighsbooks's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
“Why an acreage?
Never give a woman more sadness than she needs.
From this fabric, from this persistent earth, she will wrangle
greater things than men can fathom.”
…
“Give a woman an acreage of humiliation, with one spade,
one crucifix, one box of straight-backed pins.
You’ve given her nothing she can grow.
Within the year she will run up hard against the borders of her land,
shrieking, scouring the air for a way to flee her sex.”
— from THE ABORTIONIST’S DAUGHTER DECLARES HER LOVE
TITLE—Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting
AUTHOR—Shivanee Ramlochan
PUBLISHED—2017
GENRE—poetry
SETTING—Trinidad & Tobago
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—womanhood, family, love, violent patriarchal oppression, supernatural entities: deities & spirits, fire, Nature, legacies, heritage & inheritance, Caribbean life, history, & culture
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
IMAGERY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
FEELING—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—Folklore!
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“…Oh,
fire, fire
sets the leather shell of our tent alight; the truth is
too hot to hold and all I want is to be burned.”
— from FIRE, FIRE
My favorite thing about the experience of reading poetry is also why it’s so hard for me to write a review for a collection of poetry because all of my reactions and responses are so visceral and so subconscious that they can’t even translate into words much less a string of coherent sentences…
For me, this collection was beautiful the way that broken pottery and beached seaweed and browning sugar is beautiful—deep and rich, with the unmistakable undercurrents of grief and transformation. It’s unsettling how close intense beauty and unthinkable trauma lie together in life as in these poems. The natural world is the true foundation for women’s living, power, and desires but the earth is damaged, women’s bodies are damaged, but the spirits rage like a neverdying fire and shine bright and beautiful in spite of all that is against them.
The new husband usurping the first womanswife and the aborted possibility of a matriarchal paradise that was promised at the first beginning of the world. Do we live now following a rebirth or a death?
Read each line seven times, walk away, return, read them another seven times. Hear the voices thousandfold as the realities and relevancies spiral outwards to create bigger and bigger concentric circles until your place becomes looped in for these events effect us all…
“You tell him
I am the queen
the comeuppance
the hard heretic that nature intended.”
— from VIVEK CHOOSES HIS HUSBANDS
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
TW // abortion, rape, grief (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Reading—
- Te Kaihau The Windeater, by Keri Hulme
- The Collected Poetry of Audre Lorde
- Hag, by Tamara Jobe
- Content Warning: Everything, by Akwaeke Emezi (TBR)
- Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, by Warsaw Shire (TBR)
Most of these poems cannot even be referenced in quotes because they are written like maps, each part pointing to another part distant yet connected, using repetition and gapped emphasis to form its “message”, paint its images… However these were some of my favorite lines…
Favorite Quotes—
from ‘A NURSERY OF GODS FOR MY HALF-WHITE CHILD
“The first woman boiled black in an eldritch kitchen;
lay it out on the thin back of the world for the sun’s grave.
—If you must cry for a man, do it dancing on his skull.”
“there is no such thing as an accidental shrine.”
from THE ABORTIONIST’S DAUGHTER DECLARES HER LOVE
“Why an acreage?
Never give a woman more sadness than she needs.
From this fabric, from this persistent earth, she will wrangle
greater things than men can fathom.”
“Give a woman an acreage of humiliation, with one spade,
one crucifix, one box of straight-backed pins.
You’ve given her nothing she can grow.
Within the year she will run up hard against the borders of her land,
shrieking, scouring the air for a way to flee her sex.”
from DUENNE LARA
“I take the four rivers of the forest by throat and algal sinew,
pump the waters into my lungs. Come,
I’ll christen you away from the devil’s doorstep,
duenne suitor, duenne saviour, duenne dowry,
Duenne, you are mine…”
“The wooden atlas delivers deeper rings in us
while the devil tries again to win your heart,
grinning.”
from DUENNE LORCA
“Nothing the forest raises is a monster.”
from THE VIRGIN SPEAKS OF WHAT SHE ENDURED
“Come, burst me into song.”
from MATERNA
“Her old prayers quiver, faced with fresh ghosts.”
from FIRE, FIRE
“…Who told you these tales, I ask him as he
whispers fire, fire on my breastbone.”
“…Oh,
fire, fire
sets the leather shell of our tent alight; the truth is
too hot to hold and all I want is to be burned.”
“It gets so cold that the rivers forget how to dream in thaw tongues…”
from THE ABORTIONIST’S GRANDDAUGHTER GIVES BLOOD
“gasping, learning
how to breathe,
how to survive with
so much fire.”
from “II. Nail It to the Barn Door Where It Happened”
“‘You did not break me.
You did not break me.
Yesterday, I learned to walk again.’
Your ankle will still be ruined forever.
Blast the bolted doors into hell’s abattoir.”
from “III. You Wait for Five Years, and Then”
“You take no one’s counsel. Head for the
earth that might have you. Hollow a pit that breathes,
gives pain, does not swallow. The night watches.
You are turning in, turning deeper,
battering out a girl that reckons victories
in pockets of white stones.”
from “VII: The Open Mic of Every Deya, Burning.”
“There lies an ache
in the place I was ransacked. Only this poem knows it.
Each line break bursts me open
for applause, hands slapping like something hard and holy is grating out gold halleluiahs
beneath the proscenium of his grave.”
from ALL THE DEAD, ALL THE LIVING
“Play all the dead and all the living in you…”
from SHEPHERDESS BOXCUTTER: ONE
“We invent the beasts that we breed.
We silence the night with the startle of our starters.
So salve me.
Seek me in the ruins of that old cave, find me flinging
red flags over eye and under fist to say what I haven’t said, to let
the pitch bind me.
Blind me.”
from CAMP BURN DOWN
“Nothing touched us except the rest of the world.”
from WHAT FIGHTS, STILL
“You kiss her like wildfire levels dry bush.
You can’t give her less
than the ruination of you.”
from CROSSDRESSING AT DIVALI NAGAR
“We giggle like blind chicks gaggling free of the slaughterhouse…”
“I trace a lotus onto your back, a broken moon between
the segments of your toes…”
from FATHERHOOD
“like the first woman to save herself
the first law to write herself
the first verse quieting on my mouth like an heirloom punch,
shining purple with value…”
from VIVEK CHOOSES HIS HUSBANDS
“You tell him
I am the queen
the comeuppance
the hard heretic that nature intended.”
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abortion and Rape
half_book_and_co's review against another edition
5.0
After all these years, I still stumble when reviewing poetry, especially poetry I love. Because with poetry it's not only about themes, about words and craft, but also so much about feeling the rhythm and the way little turns of phrases just speak to you...
In any way, I followed Kiki's recommendation (which is always a good pathway) and read Shivanee Ramlochan's poetry collection "Everyone Knows I Am A Haunting".
In an interview with Wasafiri - which is a very worthwhile read in its entirety - Ramlochan implores:
Ramlochan creates singular, memorable voices which sing together in a collective; a collective of those ostracized, belittled, marginalized in a heteronormative and patriarchal society. These poems are inherently queer and they touch upon topics such as abortion and rape. Ramlochan weaves together different cultural influences and imagery and gives the poems a depth which makes me want to read them over and over again. These poems are complex offerings representing and interrogating a complex world; sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes triumphant.
In any way, I followed Kiki's recommendation (which is always a good pathway) and read Shivanee Ramlochan's poetry collection "Everyone Knows I Am A Haunting".
In an interview with Wasafiri - which is a very worthwhile read in its entirety - Ramlochan implores:
I reject the non-Caribbean fetishizing of queer Caribbean resilience. People who live outside the gender binary, outside heteronormative desire, have been doing so in Caribbean space, long before I was a tendril in my mother’s womb. What a fallacy it is for young queer people in the region to think their survival is more spectacular or more audacious than that of the queer communities preceding them. LGBTQI people have been on these islands, loving, resisting, going to market and paying bills, raising children and raising hell, for forever. It’s past the time to write about them. It’s *been* time. What kind of coward would I be, if I didn’t lend my queer voice to that?
Ramlochan creates singular, memorable voices which sing together in a collective; a collective of those ostracized, belittled, marginalized in a heteronormative and patriarchal society. These poems are inherently queer and they touch upon topics such as abortion and rape. Ramlochan weaves together different cultural influences and imagery and gives the poems a depth which makes me want to read them over and over again. These poems are complex offerings representing and interrogating a complex world; sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes triumphant.
preranakumar's review against another edition
5.0
Shivanee Ramlochan’s searing debut collection of poetry, Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting
is an uncompromising force of insurgence. The survival stories in this collection do
not shy away from ‘shrieking, floating, bastarding into birth’. The female, non-binary and
queer speakers ferociously voice their struggles against patriarchal oppression, inhabiting
the lacunae in dominant historical narratives that seek to violently erase their traumatic
experiences while also marginalising their voices. Ramlochan unflinchingly
explores survival as a violent phenomenon, engaging with the ignored, but insidious reality
of recovery. However, these poems also portray survival as a tender, intimate force, reaping strength from little salves of everyday life. A liberating, radicalising, nurturing voice !
is an uncompromising force of insurgence. The survival stories in this collection do
not shy away from ‘shrieking, floating, bastarding into birth’. The female, non-binary and
queer speakers ferociously voice their struggles against patriarchal oppression, inhabiting
the lacunae in dominant historical narratives that seek to violently erase their traumatic
experiences while also marginalising their voices. Ramlochan unflinchingly
explores survival as a violent phenomenon, engaging with the ignored, but insidious reality
of recovery. However, these poems also portray survival as a tender, intimate force, reaping strength from little salves of everyday life. A liberating, radicalising, nurturing voice !
kell_xavi's review against another edition
5.0
I am no longer your bride. We ate the words for marriage, for sacrament,
for lawfully wed. I fed my sister the ivory dress, so she might keep
warm; I placed pearl seed buttons where her eyes once shone.
Nothing in you lacks her colour,/ so you call it love.
I read this in one sitting, in one day, engrossed but too quickly, because I had to give it back to the library. I loved it all at once, but feel I lost so much I couldn't savour. In the first section, I have little of the mythology of these women, so I didn't see very well where Ramlochan came from or went. In the middle section, I felt I didn't know enough of trauma to understand; she writes meaningfully, but not for me. Little of this is for me. I took much from it, still, in the places I could find to relate to.
At night, when all else fails to remember my name,
I hear you,
sewing drought in damp recesses,
reckoning your sins in sargasso thread.
You teach me to be sad,/ but to be sad and work.
This collection is beautifully wrought, it creates a world its own and inhabits this world with fierce women, with sharpness, sex, forests, fire, and blood. Fields, skin, women, bones, and pain.
turning wolf
to woman
to wolf again.
You had scrubbed knees, a moon face, two hairplaits like black rope,
thick as pregnant pit vipers with red ribbon tongues.
I would love to come to this place again, to spend more time with Ramlochan's mythos, her wilds, seductions, and burning words. To end, here are pieces that touched and moved me:
I
A Nursery of Gods for My Half-White Child
The Abortionist's Daughter (both)
My Sister of the Coral Mouth
The Virgin Speaks of What She Endured
Materna
Fire, Fire*
The Abortionist's Granddaughter Gives Blood*
Caracara
III
All the Dead, All the Living
No Curandera But Yo Sóla
Song of the Only Surviving Grandmother
Good Names For Three Children
Clink Clink
Camp Burn Down*
The Lecture of Dead Gold
What Fights, Still*
Vivek Considers the Nature of Secrets*
for lawfully wed. I fed my sister the ivory dress, so she might keep
warm; I placed pearl seed buttons where her eyes once shone.
Nothing in you lacks her colour,/ so you call it love.
I read this in one sitting, in one day, engrossed but too quickly, because I had to give it back to the library. I loved it all at once, but feel I lost so much I couldn't savour. In the first section, I have little of the mythology of these women, so I didn't see very well where Ramlochan came from or went. In the middle section, I felt I didn't know enough of trauma to understand; she writes meaningfully, but not for me. Little of this is for me. I took much from it, still, in the places I could find to relate to.
At night, when all else fails to remember my name,
I hear you,
sewing drought in damp recesses,
reckoning your sins in sargasso thread.
You teach me to be sad,/ but to be sad and work.
This collection is beautifully wrought, it creates a world its own and inhabits this world with fierce women, with sharpness, sex, forests, fire, and blood. Fields, skin, women, bones, and pain.
turning wolf
to woman
to wolf again.
You had scrubbed knees, a moon face, two hairplaits like black rope,
thick as pregnant pit vipers with red ribbon tongues.
I would love to come to this place again, to spend more time with Ramlochan's mythos, her wilds, seductions, and burning words. To end, here are pieces that touched and moved me:
I
A Nursery of Gods for My Half-White Child
The Abortionist's Daughter (both)
My Sister of the Coral Mouth
The Virgin Speaks of What She Endured
Materna
Fire, Fire*
The Abortionist's Granddaughter Gives Blood*
Caracara
III
All the Dead, All the Living
No Curandera But Yo Sóla
Song of the Only Surviving Grandmother
Good Names For Three Children
Clink Clink
Camp Burn Down*
The Lecture of Dead Gold
What Fights, Still*
Vivek Considers the Nature of Secrets*
nkmeyers's review
Impossible to rate on the GR 5 star system - I am not the matched appreciating reader for this collection but I understand why others respond to it strongly as they do - reminds me of music and who turns up to hear which bands - this voice has a unique sound that certain ears will hear .
half_book_and_co's review
5.0
After all these years, I still stumble when reviewing poetry, especially poetry I love. Because with poetry it's not only about themes, about words and craft, but also so much about feeling the rhythm and the way little turns of phrases just speak to you...
In any way, I followed Kiki's recommendation (which is always a good pathway) and read Shivanee Ramlochan's poetry collection "Everyone Knows I Am A Haunting".
In an interview with Wasafiri - which is a very worthwhile read in its entirety - Ramlochan implores:
Ramlochan creates singular, memorable voices which sing together in a collective; a collective of those ostracized, belittled, marginalized in a heteronormative and patriarchal society. These poems are inherently queer and they touch upon topics such as abortion and rape. Ramlochan weaves together different cultural influences and imagery and gives the poems a depth which makes me want to read them over and over again. These poems are complex offerings representing and interrogating a complex world; sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes triumphant.
In any way, I followed Kiki's recommendation (which is always a good pathway) and read Shivanee Ramlochan's poetry collection "Everyone Knows I Am A Haunting".
In an interview with Wasafiri - which is a very worthwhile read in its entirety - Ramlochan implores:
I reject the non-Caribbean fetishizing of queer Caribbean resilience. People who live outside the gender binary, outside heteronormative desire, have been doing so in Caribbean space, long before I was a tendril in my mother’s womb. What a fallacy it is for young queer people in the region to think their survival is more spectacular or more audacious than that of the queer communities preceding them. LGBTQI people have been on these islands, loving, resisting, going to market and paying bills, raising children and raising hell, for forever. It’s past the time to write about them. It’s *been* time. What kind of coward would I be, if I didn’t lend my queer voice to that?
Ramlochan creates singular, memorable voices which sing together in a collective; a collective of those ostracized, belittled, marginalized in a heteronormative and patriarchal society. These poems are inherently queer and they touch upon topics such as abortion and rape. Ramlochan weaves together different cultural influences and imagery and gives the poems a depth which makes me want to read them over and over again. These poems are complex offerings representing and interrogating a complex world; sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes triumphant.
kfor24's review
5.0
Here's a link to my full review in the Wasafiri Review: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JwBPg2SCQgWFBwpiufir/full