Like a Tree, Walking
Published on 25. November 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
104 pages
978-1-80017-195-4 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the 2022 Jhalak Prize
The Poetry Book Society Winter Choice 2021
Vahni Capildeo's Like a Tree, Walking is a fresh departure, even for this famously innovative poet. Taking its title from a story of sight miraculously regained, this book draws on Capildeo's interest in ecopoetics and silence. Many pieces originate in specific places, from nocturnes and lullabies in hilly Port of Spain to 'stillness exercises' recording microenvironments - emotional and aural - around English trees. These journeys offer a configuration of the political that makes a space for new kinds of address, declaration and relation.
Capildeo takes guidance from vernacular traditions of sensitivity ranging from Thomas A Clark and Iain Crichton Smith to the participants in a Leeds libraries project on the Windrush. Like a Tree, Walking is finally a book defined by how it writes love.
The Poetry Book Society Winter Choice 2021
Vahni Capildeo's Like a Tree, Walking is a fresh departure, even for this famously innovative poet. Taking its title from a story of sight miraculously regained, this book draws on Capildeo's interest in ecopoetics and silence. Many pieces originate in specific places, from nocturnes and lullabies in hilly Port of Spain to 'stillness exercises' recording microenvironments - emotional and aural - around English trees. These journeys offer a configuration of the political that makes a space for new kinds of address, declaration and relation.
Capildeo takes guidance from vernacular traditions of sensitivity ranging from Thomas A Clark and Iain Crichton Smith to the participants in a Leeds libraries project on the Windrush. Like a Tree, Walking is finally a book defined by how it writes love.
Reviews / Votes
'Industrious and prolific, Vahni Capildeo is a writer of apparently effortless variety in form and content... She belongs to no tribe or school or movement. This may make her a 'poet's poet', one for the cognoscenti; and yet... she deserves the widest audience possible.' - Times Literary Supplement; 'Capildeo remains a sui generis talent.' - The Telegraph; 'She is, among much else, a direct and sensual poet, warmly intimate and very funny.' - The GuardianMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 134 mm
Width: 215 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
144 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80017-195-4 (9781800171954)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Vahni (Anthony Ezekiel) Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Capildeo's eight books and nine pamphlets include Skin Can Hold (Carcanet, 2019) and The Dusty Angel (Oystercatcher, 2021). Their interests include plurilingualism, traditional masquerade, and multidisciplinary collaboration. They are Writer in Residence and Professor at the University of York, a Visiting Scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and an Honorary Student of Christ Church, Oxford.