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After You Were, I Am
This extraordinary debut heralds the arrival of a major new talent.
In After You Were, I Am, charged moments from history collide with our own godless modern world. The book's three sections - ingenious rewritings of canonical prayers, dramatic monologues from the Pendle witch trials of 1612, and the divine tragedy of the Elizabethan magus John Dee - obsess over individual human characters and how our past informs (and informs on) our present. Ralphs's style is utterly distinctive; she is a modern metaphysical, tapping into a haunting, era-spanning utterance enlivened by the electric pulse of wordplay and imaginative conceit. This is poetry that in comprehending the past manages to make of it something utterly original and contemporary.
In After You Were, I Am, charged moments from history collide with our own godless modern world. The book's three sections - ingenious rewritings of canonical prayers, dramatic monologues from the Pendle witch trials of 1612, and the divine tragedy of the Elizabethan magus John Dee - obsess over individual human characters and how our past informs (and informs on) our present. Ralphs's style is utterly distinctive; she is a modern metaphysical, tapping into a haunting, era-spanning utterance enlivened by the electric pulse of wordplay and imaginative conceit. This is poetry that in comprehending the past manages to make of it something utterly original and contemporary.
- GenresPoetry
100 pages, Hardcover
Published September 16, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 22, 2025
This one took a while to get through. The collection is short, but split into three subject matters: rewritings of canonical prayers, accounts of the Pendle witch trials from the mouths of the victims, and the life of John Dee and Edward Kelley.
Overarching thoughts are as follows: Blimey, Camille Ralphs is really bloody clever. Perhaps too clever. Should a poetry collection require thirteen-pages of explanatory contextual notes at the back? Perhaps not. Her word play, witticisms, characterisations and sentiments are exceptional - this is a fiercely talented poet. The collection, I feel, is best read aloud.
By chapter:
1) Prayers
So joyful and so bleak. I was mostly familiar with the titular references, had to flick to the notes for one or two but there was enough in the brief lines of context to clear up any uncertainty. Even without context on say, St Francis of Assisi or Ignatius Loyola, the wordplay is so delicious and the sentiment so clear that the poems can hold their own.
2) Pendle Witch Trials
Favourite. I'm a big nerd about the witch trials, so I had a lot of anxiety about tackling the Pendle victims and voicing Jennet Device well, but this was done wonderfully. Regional accents were cleverly kept in, I have no objection to the way Ralphs plays with spelling. LOVED this chapter.
3) John Dee
Trickier. I know enough about Dee and Kelley to piece half their biography together with the aid of the poem, but I feel without the notes at the back, this would have still been entirely inaccessible. The notes may have been better placed between stanzas. The absolute devotion to the Elizabethan language patterns, history, spellings and style was so impressive. Basically, this is for someone who really likes their Elizabethan period poetry. I had a grand old time.
Overarching thoughts are as follows: Blimey, Camille Ralphs is really bloody clever. Perhaps too clever. Should a poetry collection require thirteen-pages of explanatory contextual notes at the back? Perhaps not. Her word play, witticisms, characterisations and sentiments are exceptional - this is a fiercely talented poet. The collection, I feel, is best read aloud.
By chapter:
1) Prayers
So joyful and so bleak. I was mostly familiar with the titular references, had to flick to the notes for one or two but there was enough in the brief lines of context to clear up any uncertainty. Even without context on say, St Francis of Assisi or Ignatius Loyola, the wordplay is so delicious and the sentiment so clear that the poems can hold their own.
2) Pendle Witch Trials
Favourite. I'm a big nerd about the witch trials, so I had a lot of anxiety about tackling the Pendle victims and voicing Jennet Device well, but this was done wonderfully. Regional accents were cleverly kept in, I have no objection to the way Ralphs plays with spelling. LOVED this chapter.
3) John Dee
Trickier. I know enough about Dee and Kelley to piece half their biography together with the aid of the poem, but I feel without the notes at the back, this would have still been entirely inaccessible. The notes may have been better placed between stanzas. The absolute devotion to the Elizabethan language patterns, history, spellings and style was so impressive. Basically, this is for someone who really likes their Elizabethan period poetry. I had a grand old time.
December 1, 2024
Nog nooit zoiets gelezen: Ralphs schrijft poëzie op basis van en geïnspireerd door oude documenten.
Het eerste deel - en voor mij minst geslaagde - neemt verschillende common prayers als voorbeeld. Technisch zeker knap gedaan, maar deze gedichten raakten me niet erg.
In deel twee spreekt ze vanuit het perspectief van verschillende slachtoffers van de Pendle heksenvervolgingen van 1612. De stemmen die Ralphs opvoert zijn ijzingwekkend en belachelijk overtuigend. Deze gedichten vormen voor mij het hoogtepunt van de bundel.
Het laatste en derde deel neemt verschillende dagboekfragmenten van John Dee - hofastroloog en magus van Queen Elisabeth - als inspiratie. Heerlijk!
Het eerste deel - en voor mij minst geslaagde - neemt verschillende common prayers als voorbeeld. Technisch zeker knap gedaan, maar deze gedichten raakten me niet erg.
In deel twee spreekt ze vanuit het perspectief van verschillende slachtoffers van de Pendle heksenvervolgingen van 1612. De stemmen die Ralphs opvoert zijn ijzingwekkend en belachelijk overtuigend. Deze gedichten vormen voor mij het hoogtepunt van de bundel.
Het laatste en derde deel neemt verschillende dagboekfragmenten van John Dee - hofastroloog en magus van Queen Elisabeth - als inspiratie. Heerlijk!
September 14, 2024
I don't read a lot of poetry (to my genuine shame) but this book tickled my fancy. Poetry with a historic sensibility, drawing (in part) from records of witch trials in the north of England.
Ralphs' writing is supremely witty, with word play in just about every line. I found myself reading itout loud to get a sense of the true beauty and craftsmanship of the verse.
And you can tell her material is based on a mountain of scrupulous research and scholarship.
At times it was arguably too erudite. The second half of the book I found nigh on incomprehensible without referring to the notes.
But a part of me kind of loved this, how she makes you work for the meaning. (You're never in any doubt that there's meaning to be found.) It makes the finding of it all the sweeter.
Ralphs' writing is supremely witty, with word play in just about every line. I found myself reading itout loud to get a sense of the true beauty and craftsmanship of the verse.
And you can tell her material is based on a mountain of scrupulous research and scholarship.
At times it was arguably too erudite. The second half of the book I found nigh on incomprehensible without referring to the notes.
But a part of me kind of loved this, how she makes you work for the meaning. (You're never in any doubt that there's meaning to be found.) It makes the finding of it all the sweeter.
January 6, 2026
I really struggled reading this. The specific subject matter is so obscure! There are notes at the back that were helpful.
As with a lot of poetry (or, some) my reflections back feel more easeful (that might not be a word but Ralphs made up a lot of words!) than my experience in situ reading. Which is to say, I like the idea of this collection and am glad it's out there even if it was a challenge for me.
As with a lot of poetry (or, some) my reflections back feel more easeful (that might not be a word but Ralphs made up a lot of words!) than my experience in situ reading. Which is to say, I like the idea of this collection and am glad it's out there even if it was a challenge for me.
May 23, 2024
I didn't find this an easy read but recognised that it was extremely well written and highly original. However, I was lucky enough to hear Camille Ralphs reading from the book at an event in Nottingham and it really is quite brilliant as poetry - and I'm looking forward to re-reading it now.
October 31, 2025
CAMILLE RALPHS IS the first woman to be poetry editor at the TLS, which is impressive all by itself, and she is only thirty-three, which is even more remarkable. This is her first collection, published in 2024 by Faber in England and this year by McSweeney's in the USA. I picked it up by because of a favorable review by Ange Mlinko--I'm something of a Pavlovian dog whenever Mlinko or Stephanie Burt praises a poet, slobbering all over the keyboard as I look online for a copy of the book. I think I scored this one through Open Books in Seattle.
The normal approach for a debut collection is "these are the best poems I have so far," but After You Were, I Am is a good deal more thematized and focused than that, with its three sections all orbiting the idea of the religious or the spiritual. The book is actually a bit darker and less vaporous than the phrase "the religious or the spiritual" suggests, but that's the best I can do.
The first section remodels and rewires eighteen prayers, mostly Christian and mostly ancient (none post-date George Herbert), somewhat in the way Alexander Pope rewired Horace or Ezra Pound rewired Propertius, with saltings of contemporary vocabulary, contemporary references, and contemporary anxieties. Kyrie Eleison morphs into: "True plutocrat and understrapper, / sugar daddy, spirit rapper, / organ donor, entity-- / O world, have mercy on me." Too audacious to be adopted by anyone's meditation retreat, I imagine, but authentic. You hear the satire and the longing at the same time.
The second section is a series of dramatic monologues from an historical and disastrous witch trial in 17th century Lancashire. Most of the women we hear from were found guilty of witchcraft and put to death, and Ralphs's collective portrait of them, among its other virtues, makes a powerful case for the separation of church and state.
Finally, we have "My Word: From the Spiritual Diary of Dr. Dee." John Dee was astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, and Ralphs's dramatic monologues in his voice evoke the last moment before religion and science go through their messy divorce. Besides his astrological pursuits, Dee studies alchemy and searches for traces of the original, unfallen, Adamic language, in which the phenomenon and its name would be fused in an integral whole--the goal of a good deal of poetry, as Charles Taylor has explained.
Ralphs's "Note on Spelling" at the end of the book might be worth reading *before* you read the book. It's not just an archaizing mannerism, á la Spenser or Chatterton, but more of a Finnegans Wake strategy, getting the word to reveal its many mycelial connections.
The normal approach for a debut collection is "these are the best poems I have so far," but After You Were, I Am is a good deal more thematized and focused than that, with its three sections all orbiting the idea of the religious or the spiritual. The book is actually a bit darker and less vaporous than the phrase "the religious or the spiritual" suggests, but that's the best I can do.
The first section remodels and rewires eighteen prayers, mostly Christian and mostly ancient (none post-date George Herbert), somewhat in the way Alexander Pope rewired Horace or Ezra Pound rewired Propertius, with saltings of contemporary vocabulary, contemporary references, and contemporary anxieties. Kyrie Eleison morphs into: "True plutocrat and understrapper, / sugar daddy, spirit rapper, / organ donor, entity-- / O world, have mercy on me." Too audacious to be adopted by anyone's meditation retreat, I imagine, but authentic. You hear the satire and the longing at the same time.
The second section is a series of dramatic monologues from an historical and disastrous witch trial in 17th century Lancashire. Most of the women we hear from were found guilty of witchcraft and put to death, and Ralphs's collective portrait of them, among its other virtues, makes a powerful case for the separation of church and state.
Finally, we have "My Word: From the Spiritual Diary of Dr. Dee." John Dee was astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, and Ralphs's dramatic monologues in his voice evoke the last moment before religion and science go through their messy divorce. Besides his astrological pursuits, Dee studies alchemy and searches for traces of the original, unfallen, Adamic language, in which the phenomenon and its name would be fused in an integral whole--the goal of a good deal of poetry, as Charles Taylor has explained.
Ralphs's "Note on Spelling" at the end of the book might be worth reading *before* you read the book. It's not just an archaizing mannerism, á la Spenser or Chatterton, but more of a Finnegans Wake strategy, getting the word to reveal its many mycelial connections.
January 5, 2025
I must confess that I found this rather frustrating.
It is strange when someone takes something so meaningful to you - faith - and just misses the point. It's part of a general fascination with witchcraft and mysticism at the moment, alongside a love of the simple sound of words. This is 'mysticism of language', where the something beyond (she never gives it a name) is catalogued in non-standard spelling, and where metaphors and imagery break down. Her aim seems to be to create a faith without God, a way of living in the world that somehow accounts for the yawning 'beyond' without trying to set out across it in doctrine. Where somehow the women at the Pendle witch trials, John Dee, St Francis, Ignatius of Loyala, and all the rest, are united in a witchcraft of words.
So it is a beautiful book, that shows a longing. But the problem with words is that they refer, and she constantly rejects any label that might be attached to what they could be referring to.
I also find myself hostile to the notes at the back. Do we really need all these explanatory labels? Maybe she could trust her readers a little more, or even trust her poems to speak for themselves.
It is characteristic of the beauty and the frustration of this little book that she has turned, 'Come my Way, my Truth, my Life' into 'Come, my Motorway, my Equals Sign, my Higher Race'. In mining the metaphysical poets simply for their wordcraft, while ignoring what lies behind it, she has created a very lopsided, very modern view of spirituality.
This is a book of poetry that captures my generation's view of the world in verse that is often very beautiful. The issue is with how hollow the view that lies behind it is.
It is strange when someone takes something so meaningful to you - faith - and just misses the point. It's part of a general fascination with witchcraft and mysticism at the moment, alongside a love of the simple sound of words. This is 'mysticism of language', where the something beyond (she never gives it a name) is catalogued in non-standard spelling, and where metaphors and imagery break down. Her aim seems to be to create a faith without God, a way of living in the world that somehow accounts for the yawning 'beyond' without trying to set out across it in doctrine. Where somehow the women at the Pendle witch trials, John Dee, St Francis, Ignatius of Loyala, and all the rest, are united in a witchcraft of words.
So it is a beautiful book, that shows a longing. But the problem with words is that they refer, and she constantly rejects any label that might be attached to what they could be referring to.
I also find myself hostile to the notes at the back. Do we really need all these explanatory labels? Maybe she could trust her readers a little more, or even trust her poems to speak for themselves.
It is characteristic of the beauty and the frustration of this little book that she has turned, 'Come my Way, my Truth, my Life' into 'Come, my Motorway, my Equals Sign, my Higher Race'. In mining the metaphysical poets simply for their wordcraft, while ignoring what lies behind it, she has created a very lopsided, very modern view of spirituality.
This is a book of poetry that captures my generation's view of the world in verse that is often very beautiful. The issue is with how hollow the view that lies behind it is.
August 27, 2025
I picked this largely up on the strength of the title. It is a very good title, the ‘after’ is deeply provocative. And Ralphs obviously understood this, because she initially (in ‘Wessobrunn Prayer’) invoked John 8:58 with a more pedestrian ‘before’, subsequently changing it for the title. But she did not extend this to changing the poem itself, and this is pretty symptomatic. The first of the three sequences in the book is the worst, reading like snarky parody or (at best) a series of unearned sub-communitarian declarations, with no evidence of critical reflection on her words, images, and ideas. (The mention of ‘organ donor’ in a stanza of ‘Kyrie Eleison’ that positions the category flatly beside ‘sugar daddy’ frankly offended me, and made me want to shake Ralphs and ask ‘what do you mean by that?’; I expect she wouldn’t actually have an answer that goes beyond a surface-level comparison and a shrug.) I thought I enjoyed the middle sequence, about the Pendle witch trials; but in retrospect I realised this was only because it made me think about an independently-interesting issue (the intentionality of witch trials), not because Ralphs had anything to add.
January 4, 2025
"...all I was is ill-starrd/astromancir, babbler, poet."
I don't pretend to grasp all of the contexts and sources, from H.G. Wells to St. Francis of Assisi, which Ralphs employs, but this collection is dazzling all the same. The first part of the volume, which rewrites various religious texts, was more challenging to grasp due to their varied sources and styles; the following two sections felt more accessible, given cohesion by the narratives of the Pendle witch trials and John Dee's life.
Ralphs' work strikes me as echoing 20th-century modernism and the metaphysical poets (famously championed by T.S. Eliot) in her fascination with paradox, faith, and the rewriting of texts, but doing so with wry humour and compassion, particularly with how she vocalises the experiences of women accused of witchcraft. I'll be keen to see what she publishes next.
I don't pretend to grasp all of the contexts and sources, from H.G. Wells to St. Francis of Assisi, which Ralphs employs, but this collection is dazzling all the same. The first part of the volume, which rewrites various religious texts, was more challenging to grasp due to their varied sources and styles; the following two sections felt more accessible, given cohesion by the narratives of the Pendle witch trials and John Dee's life.
Ralphs' work strikes me as echoing 20th-century modernism and the metaphysical poets (famously championed by T.S. Eliot) in her fascination with paradox, faith, and the rewriting of texts, but doing so with wry humour and compassion, particularly with how she vocalises the experiences of women accused of witchcraft. I'll be keen to see what she publishes next.
June 19, 2025
What I love about these poems is the absolute cheekiness of them. Imagine a somber-toned metaphysical poet purposefully dispelling words and using the phrase "to the window, to the wall" without sounding goofy. Ralphs is here at work reclaiming language in perhaps one of the most interesting ways I've seen in the last decade. She is actively making the everyday phrase of a too-online Tumblr lord the stuff of poetry. One of my favorite examples of this is in "Veni Spiritus Sancti."
Greatly enjoyed, a perfect debut, and I'll be reading along for years to come.
Greatly enjoyed, a perfect debut, and I'll be reading along for years to come.
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April 22, 2024so winterlesse, in flocks of foxgloves hocketing the hill - tolling as forever, as heavily n deadly, as Hell's bells. Please, forgive me.
the seasick, cogitating sea
I knew.
and everything I knew I did not know.
and everything I did not know I knew.
and you: my word. 'its time to go.'
the concept is so important
the seasick, cogitating sea
I knew.
and everything I knew I did not know.
and everything I did not know I knew.
and you: my word. 'its time to go.'
the concept is so important
October 12, 2024
of course I looked up every single name mentioned only to find a good and concise biography for each at the end of the book.
i was completely ignorant about the Pendle witch trials! I'm also absolutely amazed at how ralphs crafted a poem for each of the main people involved in the narrative. anyone can see the great amount of work that was put into this little book.
i was completely ignorant about the Pendle witch trials! I'm also absolutely amazed at how ralphs crafted a poem for each of the main people involved in the narrative. anyone can see the great amount of work that was put into this little book.
April 28, 2024
Stunning- will need to and want to & will read again and again
O, words obscure stun
Cannot grasp your soaring mind
Hewn incise and cleave
Sense - witches, astral beings, spells
R U of this world yourself
O, words obscure stun
Cannot grasp your soaring mind
Hewn incise and cleave
Sense - witches, astral beings, spells
R U of this world yourself
October 14, 2024
Very impressive that this was written by a Zillenial.
More John Dee is great; Rig Veda in Western poetics again!
More John Dee is great; Rig Veda in Western poetics again!
February 1, 2025
Very interesting!
March 4, 2025
Really powerful first section but she kind of lost me in the second half.
October 18, 2024
"You lok up our thumbs
with opposing tose nd then sling us, a hook,
t the watery snug – the rivrr, rust-
jungled with chainge, refuse, and curdld
recllect of stars; rivvvr that lays
siege to us, only later to gush at our
throat like a mob, n to swilll
amung our dropsied
glops of blud – divine
iff we'll giltily phloat. And we're damned if we do; and
we,re certainly damned if we don,t."
So incredibly complex, layered, referential, groundbreaking that I often felt intimidated by the verses and too uninformed to fully grasp them. Nonetheless, I'm impressed by the author's effort and achievement of creating a literary work that is so distinctive and so moving, even in its cryptic nature.
with opposing tose nd then sling us, a hook,
t the watery snug – the rivrr, rust-
jungled with chainge, refuse, and curdld
recllect of stars; rivvvr that lays
siege to us, only later to gush at our
throat like a mob, n to swilll
amung our dropsied
glops of blud – divine
iff we'll giltily phloat. And we're damned if we do; and
we,re certainly damned if we don,t."
So incredibly complex, layered, referential, groundbreaking that I often felt intimidated by the verses and too uninformed to fully grasp them. Nonetheless, I'm impressed by the author's effort and achievement of creating a literary work that is so distinctive and so moving, even in its cryptic nature.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews