The first poem in Quiet is fierce.
Declaration
if sickness begins in the gut, if
from Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
I live in the belly of the beast, if
here at the heart of empire–
if careful in the house of the host, if
quiet at the hearth of the host, if
here at the home of empire–
if I live in the belly of the beast,
let me beget sickness in its gut.
British poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley writes about being a black woman. She writes about the words of colonialism, the fear of walking home when police dismiss the missing who are black. She writes of the smiling girls on relaxer kits, “poster girls for the effacement of themselves”. About black girls embracing their beauty. “Pandemic vs Black Folk” reflects on the pandemic, Brexit, and the reality that social distancing isn’t new for her: “In this skin, sis, I’m a virus too.”
There are poems of love and friendship. I love the poem “Stephanie;” walking by a house where a friend used to live, she recalls how they would walk to the park at night: “What is a friend/but someone to sit with/on the swings/out in the darkness.”
In “This Poem,” she says what so many poets know: the poem you meant to write is superseded by the poem that demands to be written.
There is a lyricism to the poems, a propulsion of language. They demanded to be read out loud.
I was struck by the experimental form of the poems, words crossed out, entire lines blackened with only a few words on each line readable, the repeated words, lines dense with words with inserted brackets.
The author includes a Further Reading list of books including The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture by Kevin Quashie which influenced her work.
Thanks to A. A. Knopf for a free book.
Quiet: Poems
Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Pub Date February 28, 2023
Knopf Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780593535646 (ISBN10: 0593535642)
from the publisher
A black British poet making her thrilling American debut explores the importance of “quiet” in producing forms of community, resistance, and love.
“Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; [they] perfectly embody the political through the personal.”–Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
How does one encounter meaning amid so many kinds of noise? What is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist–and what liberating potential might it hold? These poems dwell on ideas of black interiority, intimacy, and selfhood, and they celebrate as fiercely as they mourn. With a metaphysical edge and a formal restlessness attuned to both the sonics and the inadequacies of language, Quiet navigates the tension between the impulse to guard one’s inner life and the knowledge that, as Audre Lorde writes, “your silence will not protect you.”
The Literate Quilter 