Of Sirens, Body & Faultlines

by Nat Raha

Of Sirens, Body & Faultlines is a book of prophecy against this Brexit era, rising from a post-2008 London, where crisis and austerity meet the vanity projects of the super-rich. Committed to the immediacy of a present that is precarious and under surveillance, Of Sirens... attends to queer, transfeminist and people of colour counter-memories and histories. It seeks new expressions of desire and modes of breath, pushing against the gravities that would rather these lives and worlds disappear.

While arguing with the radio may seem futile, syntax, punctuation, grammar and the page must still all be mobilised to help create new conditions of possibility – for collectivity, for poetry to speak. Raha’s exceptional, experimental, queer lyric mobilises all aspects of language to reveal contradictions of capitalism and defuse populist rhetoric. This is a writing of city life against the flows to capital; labouring bodies speaking back to the demands of work and the fictions of xenophobic politicians. It concerns herstory, transfeminism, collectivity; the everyday of South East London, transformation and decolonisation, through counter-memories, anti-memoir, and a trans poetics.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

120 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2015

Reviews

[Bob Jacobs]

I enjoyed some of the poems, others less so. One highlight for me: “The marriage of George Osborne & Iain Duncan Smith (Epithalamion)” is an extremely good poem!

[Cory]

This is why Nat is one of my favourite poets. The writing is effortlessly experimental, beautifully curated and every word lands. Seriously stunning.