Measures of expatriation / Vahni Capildeo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Capildeo, Vahni, 1973- author.

Contributor:

Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

v, 127 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Carcanet Press Limited, 2016.

Summary:

In Measures of Expatriation Vahni Capildeo's poems and prose-poems speak of the complex alienation of the expatriate, and address wider issues around identity in contemporary Western society. Born in Trinidad and resident in the UK, Capildeo rejects the easy depiction of a person as a neat, coherent whole - 'pure is a strange word' - embracing instead a pointilliste self, one grounded in complexity. In these texts sense and syntax are disrupted; languages rub and intersect; dream sequences, love poems, polylogues and borrowed words build into a precarious self-assemblage.' Cliché', she writes, 'is spitting into the sea', and in this book poetry is still a place where words and names, with their power to bewitch and subjugate, may be disrupted, reclaimed. The politics of the body, and cultures of sexual objectification, gender inequality and casual racism, are the borders across which Capildeo homes, seeking the modest luxury of being 'looked at as if one is neutral ground'. In the end it is language itself, the determination to speak, to which the poet finds she belongs: 'Language is my home, I say; not one particular language.' Measures of Expatriation is in the vanguard of literature arising from the aftermath of Empire, with a fearless and natural complexity. Book jacket.

Contents:

I

Handfast 11

Slaughterer 12

Fire & Darkness: And Also / No join / Like 13

To Stand Before 15

Mercy and Estrangement 18

A Personal Dog 19

Too Solid Flesh 20

II

The Prolongation of the Spine and the Stretched Neck Approximate the French Philosopher Only to His Own, and Airy, Beast 35

Investigation of Past Shoes 36

'I Love You' 38

Chloe on the Jubilee 39

Laptop Blue Screen Rationalization 40

Maria Lloró / Blue Sky Tears 42

Inhuman Triumphs 44

III

Neomarica Sky Jet 49

Cities in Step 52

'I Wish to Be Speaking to You until Death' 55

IV

Kassandra #memoryandtrauma #livingilionstyle 59

The Book of Dreams / Livre de Cauchemars 60

Louise Bourgeois: Insomnia Drawings 67

V

Far from Rome 81

Marginal 82

Snake in the Grass 83

Disposal of a Weapon 84

In 2190, Albion's Civil Conflicts Finally Divided Along Norman-Saxon Lines 85

To London 86

Seven Nights in Transit 87

VI

Five Measures of Expatriation 93

All Your Houses 104

VII

Syllable of Dolour 119

Pobrecillo Tarn 120

Sycorax Whoops 121

Un Furl 122

Stalker 124.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

ISBN:

9781784101688

1784101680

OCLC:

920731906

Publisher Number:

99969103012