Skin Can Hold
Published on 30. May 2019
128 pages
978-1-78410-732-1 (ISBN)
Description
Longlisted for the 2020 BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature
A Telegraph Book of the Year 2019
Vahni Capildeo, author of Measures of Expatriation (Forward Prize, 2016), returns with a third Carcanet volume, Skin Can Hold. The collection marks an adventurous departure for a pen-and-paper poet. These texts are the fruit of collaborative experiments in theatre, dance and other performance, drawing on burlesque and mime as well as Capildeo's fascination with Caribbean masquerade. The poems are astir with voices and bodies usually kept 'between the lines' of poetry: a weeping poltergeist disrupting the decorum of a lyric; polyglot workmen along an ivory-towercity road. Novels are turned inside out to become dramas of sleaze and surveillance.
A Telegraph Book of the Year 2019
Vahni Capildeo, author of Measures of Expatriation (Forward Prize, 2016), returns with a third Carcanet volume, Skin Can Hold. The collection marks an adventurous departure for a pen-and-paper poet. These texts are the fruit of collaborative experiments in theatre, dance and other performance, drawing on burlesque and mime as well as Capildeo's fascination with Caribbean masquerade. The poems are astir with voices and bodies usually kept 'between the lines' of poetry: a weeping poltergeist disrupting the decorum of a lyric; polyglot workmen along an ivory-towercity road. Novels are turned inside out to become dramas of sleaze and surveillance.
Reviews / Votes
'Capildeo's intelligence, learning, wit, anger, skill and insight appear to be, on the evidence so far, limitless... This is poetry which is interested in looking for the truth with the only tool we have to do so, language... This is real - stop, slow down, read, think - poetry.'Wood Bee Poet 'This new collection is a tour de force of theatrical speculation'
Jade Cuttle, The Guardian Poetry Review Roundup 'An adventurous and verbally challenging texture, moving across conceptual distances at great speed, avoiding the conventional mechanisms of depiction or statement, but rhythmically alive in a way that draws the reader after [them] down unknown paths.'
Peter Riley, The Fortnightly Review 'Masterfully moves between so many forms that the brilliance for any voyager en-route is immediately palpable.'
?SPAM Zine Books of the Year 2019 'On your feet, then, the syntax poems sing, dismantling the traditional audience-speaker receivership of poetry.'
CaribbeanBeat 'It has a sense of purpose, and its playfulness is infectious... There is a sharpness to the observations and a bold specificity to their articulation, often presented with an eye for humour. Capildeo's delight in this experiment is evident'
?Chrissy Williams, Poetry London 'Capildeo's poetry explores the ambiguity and capaciousness of language, and is deeply interested in the provisionality of meaning.'
Francesca Bratton, The Compass
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Carcanet Press Ltd
File size
0,54 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-732-1 (9781784107321)
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Person
Anthony V. Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer of poetry and non-fiction. Currently Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York, their site-specific word and visual art includes responses to Cornwall's former capital, Launceston, as the Causley Trust Poet in Residence (2022) and to the Ubatuba granite of the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (2023), as well as to Scottish, Irish, and Caribbean built and natural environments. Their numerous books and pamphlets, from No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003), Person Animal Figure (Landfill, 2005) onwards, are distinguished by deliberate engagement with independent and small presses. Their work has been recognized with the Cholmondeley Award (Society of Authors) and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection. Their publications include Like a Tree, Walking (Carcanet, 2021) (Poetry Book Society Choice), and A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022). Their interests include silence, translation theory, medieval reworkings, plurilingualism, collaborative work, and traditional masquerade. Recent commissions include research-based Windrush poems for Poet in the City and for the Royal Society of Literature. Capildeo served as a judge for the Jhalak Prize (2023).
