Ordinary Beast
Published on 21. September 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
72 pages
978-1-78037-665-3 (ISBN)
Description
A poet of existential magnitude, deep intellect and playful subversion, America's Nicole Sealey writes poems that are restless in their empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human.
The ranging scope of enquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast - at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential - is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey's voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey's is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.
Ordinary Beast was first published in the US by Ecco in 2017, and was a finalist the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and for the PEN Open Book Award. This first UK edition of her debut collection is published by Bloodaxe in 2023 at the same time as her second book of poetry, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, an excerpt from which won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2021.
The ranging scope of enquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast - at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential - is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey's voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey's is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.
Ordinary Beast was first published in the US by Ecco in 2017, and was a finalist the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and for the PEN Open Book Award. This first UK edition of her debut collection is published by Bloodaxe in 2023 at the same time as her second book of poetry, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, an excerpt from which won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2021.
Reviews / Votes
Though these poems are attuned to their own devastation, they continue unapologetically with their own aspirations. -- Claudia Rankine Nicole Sealey is a poet for the ages, and this is a stunning debut. -- Tracy K. Smith These poems are marvels that should be read, re-read, and read aloud to others. -- Amy Tan These are poems of thrilling sonic and syntactical play, formal dexterity, mythmaking, and delight in the ordinary rendered strange by new juxtapositions. -- Natasha Trethewey Nicole Sealey is one of today's most interesting poets... she steers us on a fantastic voyage through her infinitely brilliant mind. * Essence Magazine * Quietly profound, Sealey's first collected work flows with an avid heart and mind through questions of love, inheritance, friendship, and family-things that sustain us from one day to the next, made more precious by their fragility. -- O, The Oprah Magazine Ordinary Beast showcases a versatile artist as she plumbs an array of themes - racial injustice and gender marginalization - by appropriating forms popularised by dead white guys: Plutarch, Shakespeare, Donne. Her variations are vigorous, beguiling... Ordinary Beast is a triumph, and we can look forward to future spectacular work from this extravagantly gifted poet. -- Hamilton Cain * Leonard Prize Reviews *More details
Edition
First UK edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 155 mm
Width: 234 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight
150 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-665-3 (9781780376653)
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
Person
Nicole Sealey was born in St Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. She is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco, US, 2017; Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2023), which was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (Alfred A. Knopf, US, & Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2023). Her chapbook, The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016), was the winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize.
Excerpts from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Poetry London, while 'Pages 22-29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2021.
Sealey's honours include a 2023-2024 Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library, a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, as well as fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Sealey served as the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation from 2017 to 2019. She is a visiting professor at Boston University and teaches in the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris program at New York University.
In 2017, she started The Sealey Challenge, an annual online community challenge to read one book of poetry each day for the month of August.
Excerpts from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Poetry London, while 'Pages 22-29, an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2021.
Sealey's honours include a 2023-2024 Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library, a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, as well as fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Sealey served as the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation from 2017 to 2019. She is a visiting professor at Boston University and teaches in the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris program at New York University.
In 2017, she started The Sealey Challenge, an annual online community challenge to read one book of poetry each day for the month of August.
Content
13 medical history
14 a violence
15 candelabra with heads
17 hysterical strength
18 legendary
19 it's not ?tness, it's a lifestyle
20 happy birthday to me
21 the ?rst person who will live to be one hundred and ?fty years old has already been born
22 in igboland
?
25 legendary
26 heretofore unuttered
27 and
29 cento for the night i said, "i love you"
41 virginia is for lovers
43 clue
46 c ue
49 unfurnished
?
53 imagine sisyphus happy
55 underperforming sonnet overperforming
56 legendary
57 an apology for trashing magazines in which you appear
59 Even the Gods
60 In Defense of "Candelabra with Heads"
61 instead of executions, think death erections
62 unframed
63 object permanence
65 Notes
14 a violence
15 candelabra with heads
17 hysterical strength
18 legendary
19 it's not ?tness, it's a lifestyle
20 happy birthday to me
21 the ?rst person who will live to be one hundred and ?fty years old has already been born
22 in igboland
?
25 legendary
26 heretofore unuttered
27 and
29 cento for the night i said, "i love you"
41 virginia is for lovers
43 clue
46 c ue
49 unfurnished
?
53 imagine sisyphus happy
55 underperforming sonnet overperforming
56 legendary
57 an apology for trashing magazines in which you appear
59 Even the Gods
60 In Defense of "Candelabra with Heads"
61 instead of executions, think death erections
62 unframed
63 object permanence
65 Notes