Venus as a Bear
Published on 26. April 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
112 pages
978-1-78410-554-9 (ISBN)
Description
The Poetry Book Society Summer 2018 Choice.
Shortlisted for The 2018 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Vahni Capildeo's Venus as a Bear collects poems on animals, art, language, the sea, thinghood, metaphor, description, and dance. They tend toward, and tend to, the inanimate and non-human, tenderly disclosing their forms of sentience. We have feelings for creatures, objects and places, but where do these affinities come from? How do things, as things, affect us, remain mysterious while making themselves known?
For Capildeo answers formed at their own pace, while waiting for lambing at a friend's farm; exploring the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford; criss-crossing the British Isles with the Out of Bounds poetry project; or hearing of Africa and the Romans in Scotland, of Guyana and Shakespeare, while standing over-the-boots deep in a freezing sea off the coast of Wales.
Many of the poems respond to real places, objects and people, as investigations, meditations, or dedications. They dwell on bodies and dwell in the body, inviting ardent, open forms of reading, in the spirit of their composition.
Shortlisted for The 2018 Forward Prize for Best Collection.
Vahni Capildeo's Venus as a Bear collects poems on animals, art, language, the sea, thinghood, metaphor, description, and dance. They tend toward, and tend to, the inanimate and non-human, tenderly disclosing their forms of sentience. We have feelings for creatures, objects and places, but where do these affinities come from? How do things, as things, affect us, remain mysterious while making themselves known?
For Capildeo answers formed at their own pace, while waiting for lambing at a friend's farm; exploring the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford; criss-crossing the British Isles with the Out of Bounds poetry project; or hearing of Africa and the Romans in Scotland, of Guyana and Shakespeare, while standing over-the-boots deep in a freezing sea off the coast of Wales.
Many of the poems respond to real places, objects and people, as investigations, meditations, or dedications. They dwell on bodies and dwell in the body, inviting ardent, open forms of reading, in the spirit of their composition.
Reviews / Votes
'This is a highly original collection in form and content, with blunted messages and sharp polished undertones. One to read slowly and savour.' - Poetry Salzberg Review on Measures of ExpatriationMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
154 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-554-9 (9781784105549)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Vahni Capildeo's multilingual, cross-genre writing is grounded in time experienced through place. Her DPhil in Old Norse literature and translation theory, her travels, and her Indian diaspora/Caribbean background deepen the voices in the landscapes that inspire her. Her poetry (six books and four pamphlets) includes Measures of Expatriation, awarded the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2016. She has worked in academia; in culture for development, with Commonwealth Writers; and as an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer. Capildeo held the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship and the Harper-Wood Studentship at Cambridge. She is currently a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at the University of Leeds.