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The Blue Clerk
Dionne Brand, author of the Griffin Poetry Prize-winning collection Ossuaries, returns with a startlingly original work about the act of writing itself.On a lonely wharf a clerk in an ink blue coat inspects bales and bales of paper that hold a poet's accumulated left-hand pages--the unwritten, the withheld, the unexpressed, the withdrawn, the restrained. In The Blue Clerk award-winning poet Dionne Brand stages a conversation and an argument between the poet and the Blue Clerk, who is the keeper of the poet's pages. In their dialogues--which take shape as a series of haunting prose poems--the poet and the clerk invoke a host of writers, philosophers, and artists, from Jacob Lawrence, Lola Keipja, and Walter Benjamin to John Coltrane, Josephine Turalba, and Jorge Luis Borges. Through these essay poems, Brand explores memory, language, culture, and time, offering beautiful and jarring juxtapositions ( The Wire is the latest version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ), and endlessly haunting language (On a road like this you don't know where you are. Whether you have arrived or whether you are still on your way. Whether you are still at the beginning or at the end. You are in the middle all the time. What would be the sign?).An essential observer and one of the most accomplished poets writing today, Dionne Brand's latest engages intimately with the act and difficulty of writing, the relationship between the author and the world, and the relationship between the author and art. Profound, moving, and wise in equal parts, The Blue Clerk is a work of staggering intellect and imagination, and a truly sublime piece of writing from one of Canada's most renowned, honoured, and bestselling poets.
248 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 2018
46 people are currently reading
951 people want to read
About the author
Dionne Brand
61 books487 followersAs a young girl growing up in Trinidad, Dionne Brand submitted poems to the newspapers under the pseudonym Xavier Simone, an homage to Nina Simone, whom she would listen to late at night on the radio. Brand moved to Canada when she was 17 to attend the University of Toronto, where she earned a degree in Philosophy and English, a Masters in the Philosophy of Education and pursued PhD studies in Women’s History but left the program to make time for creative writing.
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,” she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read’ New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.”
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/dionne-b...
Dionne Brand first came to prominence in Canada as a poet. Her books of poetry include No Language Is Neutral, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, and Land to Light On, winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Trillium Award and thirsty, finalist for the Griffin Prize and winner of the Pat Lowther Award for poetry. Brand is also the author of the acclaimed novels In Another Place, Not Here, which was shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Award, and At the Full and Change of the Moon. Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
What We All Long For was published to great critical acclaim in 2005. While writing the novel, Brand would find herself gazing out the window of a restaurant in the very Toronto neighbourhood occupied by her characters. “I’d be looking through the window and I’d think this is like the frame of the book, the frame of reality: ‘There they are: a young Asian woman passing by with a young black woman passing by, with a young Italian man passing by,” she says in an interview with The Toronto Star. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes her as saying “I’ve ‘read’ New York and London and Paris. And I thought this city needs to be written like that, too.”
In addition to her literary accomplishments, Brand is Professor of English in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/dionne-b...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 31, 2018
dionne brand’s work always makes me love language and love being in love. this is a brilliant and dense work! i feel like being out of academia/not reading theory (not to be confused with her new novel, i mean like barthes and deleuze and etc theory) for a while i had to stop and put this down at times and read it in spurts. the bibliography at the end and categorization of the verses was so satisfying.
May 13, 2022
'This is what I am saying, the blue clerk says, violet begins. There is this about my job, the day is a bright one, the sea billowing. Today we are on the Pacific. We arrived last night by the grey and violet sea. The bales drove us like old sails. The aphids dove in the shape of anchors. I smelled twelve thousand desert flowers. We were joined by one million bees, they slept in the folds of our documents,
the oil barges watered in our eyes, the wires braceleted the great music of the ocean.'
—Verso 41.1
the oil barges watered in our eyes, the wires braceleted the great music of the ocean.'
—Verso 41.1
January 9, 2019
Even though I don't understand 60% of this, Brand's prose is transfixing.
July 17, 2019
These are prose poems which, as the "Ars Poetica" suggests, concern the practice of poetry. The author's oeuvre is contained in crates on a pier which is more mind space than a physical one, and a space more important than time which, I understand, is always now. The blue clerk serves as a kind of archivist of the oeuvre, or confidant. The combination of author and clerk is a meditation on craft.
I think. This is a thought-provoking work and one to be returned to over and over with pleasure.
I think. This is a thought-provoking work and one to be returned to over and over with pleasure.
December 3, 2018
I must have absorbed the entire spirit of this book during a reading by Dionne Brand. Reading it in full was a journey of reverberations, a deja vu of my meeting with the all-wise clerk. This is a mesmerizing reverie, an opus on the nature of consciousness, the perfection of imperfect thought, so often held back, so heavy with the context that guides the pen.
August 12, 2021
Transcendent. This book is life changing (esp at my juncture of heading into grad school for poetry). I'm gonna be carrying this book with me for the rest of my life wow.
January 27, 2023
“She keeps account of cubic metres of senses, perceptions, and resistant facts. No one need be aware of these; no one is likely to understand. Some of these are quite dangerous. And, some of them are too delicate and beautiful for the present world.”
I read this and ordered a physical copy of the book.
“In June, I realized I had already abandoned nation long before I knew myself, the author says…. Every year for forty years I've been asked the same question by someone who needed to consume allegiances. Some interrogator observes my skin and asks me why.”
The conversations between the clerk and the author sounds like the internal dialogue or struggle within a single person.
‘Elegy, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze remarked, is one of the principal sources of poetry. It is the great complaint ... the complaint is "what's happening to me overwhelms me." Not (simply) that I am in pain but what has taken away my power of action overwhelms me. And why do I see these things why do I know these things why must I endure seeing and knowing.’
A consideration on the role of the poet and the function of art. Excellent.
I read this and ordered a physical copy of the book.
“In June, I realized I had already abandoned nation long before I knew myself, the author says…. Every year for forty years I've been asked the same question by someone who needed to consume allegiances. Some interrogator observes my skin and asks me why.”
The conversations between the clerk and the author sounds like the internal dialogue or struggle within a single person.
‘Elegy, the philosopher Gilles Deleuze remarked, is one of the principal sources of poetry. It is the great complaint ... the complaint is "what's happening to me overwhelms me." Not (simply) that I am in pain but what has taken away my power of action overwhelms me. And why do I see these things why do I know these things why must I endure seeing and knowing.’
A consideration on the role of the poet and the function of art. Excellent.
November 13, 2022
Someone not loving Dionne Brand 😫🔫 Me, a Guelph CRWR MFA Student
April 1, 2024
The snow is falling in Albany—the lonely clerk works tirelessly, sorting through her blue bales.
There is something magnetic about Brand’s prose-poetry. Even if 50 percent of what she writes goes over your head (like it did mine), the dynamic between the author and the clerk is enough to sustain your engagement until you reach the next oasis.
The process of Language is central to the understanding of the world—Liberation and Enslavement are made possible by the Word. The work of the poet is self-evident: lead the reader toward realization by withholding what need not be said.
4/5
There is something magnetic about Brand’s prose-poetry. Even if 50 percent of what she writes goes over your head (like it did mine), the dynamic between the author and the clerk is enough to sustain your engagement until you reach the next oasis.
The process of Language is central to the understanding of the world—Liberation and Enslavement are made possible by the Word. The work of the poet is self-evident: lead the reader toward realization by withholding what need not be said.
4/5
January 23, 2024
there is nothing like brand’s prose and this book just blew my mind every page
May 21, 2021
The best books are the ones you enjoy even though much
of it is beyond your current understanding.
This book was beyond my grasp...and that's oké.
"Works of art are of infinite loneliness
and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism.
Only love can grasp and hold and fairly judge them". (R.M. Rilke)
of it is beyond your current understanding.
This book was beyond my grasp...and that's oké.
"Works of art are of infinite loneliness
and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism.
Only love can grasp and hold and fairly judge them". (R.M. Rilke)
October 15, 2018
Just magical!
January 12, 2023
I managed to get to the end, but I have to say it required discipline and great effort to do that. I'll post my thoughts much the way the book is written:
* essentially a self-conversation between the writer's left brain (the Blue Clerk) and right brain (the author/poet)
* the conversation is about writing and how writing is done
* the effort seems to be to me for the writer to free herself as much as possible from the conventions that developed and constraint her freedom to just express truth
* the Blue Clerk keeps accounts of thoughts and facts and experiences from the author's life and history
*the author/poet attempts to write freely, conscious of the Blue Clerk's efforts and results, but wanting to be free as well
* the book is formulated in four parts: the first part seems to loosely focus on the writer's past in Trinidad; the second part seems to loosely focus on the writer's experience in Toronto; the third part seems to loosely focus on the writer's travels around the world and other artists (jazz musicians, writers, painters who seek and achieve to some degree the freedom the writer's seeks
* the book blends poetry to prose
* the colours blue, violet and lemon predominate
* there is much about plants, notably wisteria and zinnias, leaves, and aphids in the book
* at the very end the writer suggestions how to prepare for writing prose and for writing poetry
The book generated an interesting and educational discussion in our book club, but we all acknowledged that getting through to the end of the book was a big challenge.
* essentially a self-conversation between the writer's left brain (the Blue Clerk) and right brain (the author/poet)
* the conversation is about writing and how writing is done
* the effort seems to be to me for the writer to free herself as much as possible from the conventions that developed and constraint her freedom to just express truth
* the Blue Clerk keeps accounts of thoughts and facts and experiences from the author's life and history
*the author/poet attempts to write freely, conscious of the Blue Clerk's efforts and results, but wanting to be free as well
* the book is formulated in four parts: the first part seems to loosely focus on the writer's past in Trinidad; the second part seems to loosely focus on the writer's experience in Toronto; the third part seems to loosely focus on the writer's travels around the world and other artists (jazz musicians, writers, painters who seek and achieve to some degree the freedom the writer's seeks
* the book blends poetry to prose
* the colours blue, violet and lemon predominate
* there is much about plants, notably wisteria and zinnias, leaves, and aphids in the book
* at the very end the writer suggestions how to prepare for writing prose and for writing poetry
The book generated an interesting and educational discussion in our book club, but we all acknowledged that getting through to the end of the book was a big challenge.
November 15, 2022
I really enjoyed this book because it was unlike any other poetry books I have read. I loved the diction and the way the words flowed together nicely.
Some of my favourite quotes include:
“Poetry has the ability to reconstitute language; it uses time. It can make you see the xylem between the then and the after, or the now and the after. It has no obligation to the present. It IS time.” (Verso 19)
“There is always a bus driving toward another possible life” (Verso 23)
“Whether you are still at the beginning or at the end. You are in the middle all the time. What would be the sign?” (Verso 38.3)
“I have a photo of me who is me, and then there is the me who is me.” (Verso 40.2)
All of Verso 40.6
“I am not really in life, the author says. I am really a voyeur.” (Verso 42)
“Not everyone wants immortality, or longevity, or to know the meaning of life. Only freedom matters” (Verso 58)
Some of my favourite quotes include:
“Poetry has the ability to reconstitute language; it uses time. It can make you see the xylem between the then and the after, or the now and the after. It has no obligation to the present. It IS time.” (Verso 19)
“There is always a bus driving toward another possible life” (Verso 23)
“Whether you are still at the beginning or at the end. You are in the middle all the time. What would be the sign?” (Verso 38.3)
“I have a photo of me who is me, and then there is the me who is me.” (Verso 40.2)
All of Verso 40.6
“I am not really in life, the author says. I am really a voyeur.” (Verso 42)
“Not everyone wants immortality, or longevity, or to know the meaning of life. Only freedom matters” (Verso 58)
January 27, 2023
This book is… I don’t know how to describe it.
And I think that is the purpose of this book, to remind us not everything has to be catalogued, labeled, understood to its core. Sometimes it’s all about images and language and emotion and adjectives and words and stories. We have this inherent need to comprehend, to interpret, to read and know what we read.
Yet, I feel like I don’t know what I just read. Some things I did not comprehend, some things I cannot interpret: but I was marveled, I was surprised, I was set on introspection. Dionne Brand is a master of language, and though something might or might not have escaped and eluded me through this reading (which took me a while), I felt this book. I felt each word, I saw it before me.
The dialogue between clerk and author, the duality in one’s own self, it’s beginning to become one of my favorite tropes. I really enjoyed this read, even though I’m not sure what it was about. And that’s the beauty. The blue beauty.
4/5
And I think that is the purpose of this book, to remind us not everything has to be catalogued, labeled, understood to its core. Sometimes it’s all about images and language and emotion and adjectives and words and stories. We have this inherent need to comprehend, to interpret, to read and know what we read.
Yet, I feel like I don’t know what I just read. Some things I did not comprehend, some things I cannot interpret: but I was marveled, I was surprised, I was set on introspection. Dionne Brand is a master of language, and though something might or might not have escaped and eluded me through this reading (which took me a while), I felt this book. I felt each word, I saw it before me.
The dialogue between clerk and author, the duality in one’s own self, it’s beginning to become one of my favorite tropes. I really enjoyed this read, even though I’m not sure what it was about. And that’s the beauty. The blue beauty.
4/5
June 24, 2020
Reading Dionne Brand is always an experience. There's a reason that she was named a recent Toronto Poet Laureate.
Poets live in circles. Poets love in circles. Poets poet in circles.
I feel like the three "characters" explored here are three facets of the same person.
I'm not sure.
What I do know for sure is that it's nice to recognize Toronto and Montreal, and the choice to go spineless feels like a move-in which direction, I don't know.
"In this city, you fall in love at Chester subway, it's not a beautiful subway so your love makes it so. But its ugliness may doom your love, and you know it but you love anyway." (29)
"They became an adjective and lose their noun-ness." (82)
Poets live in circles. Poets love in circles. Poets poet in circles.
I feel like the three "characters" explored here are three facets of the same person.
I'm not sure.
What I do know for sure is that it's nice to recognize Toronto and Montreal, and the choice to go spineless feels like a move-in which direction, I don't know.
"In this city, you fall in love at Chester subway, it's not a beautiful subway so your love makes it so. But its ugliness may doom your love, and you know it but you love anyway." (29)
"They became an adjective and lose their noun-ness." (82)
February 7, 2025
Josh Cook who wrote The Art of Libromancy: On Selling Books and Reading Books in the Twenty-first Century said to keep reading books that you find challenging and even though you may not understand it all, you'll feel grateful that you read it. This is that book.
I started reading this book in 2021 and gave up, then I returned to it and I'm glad that I did. I really enjoyed it, it was difficult, but I love what the poet Dionne Brand had to say about Toronto, being a newcomer, Immigration, connection, emotions, colours. I really enjoyed it all.
I started reading this book in 2021 and gave up, then I returned to it and I'm glad that I did. I really enjoyed it, it was difficult, but I love what the poet Dionne Brand had to say about Toronto, being a newcomer, Immigration, connection, emotions, colours. I really enjoyed it all.
April 3, 2024
"What the author has, one stage of an illness, what illness, an earache, steady, an inclination to take her leave of places after an hour or so. A gregariousness followed by a sharp desire to be alone."
"There were two kinds of books. Books of discomfort and books of discomfort. The books of discomfort said the 'you' that you think you are is not the you that you are, and the books of discomfort said you are the you that you are, though, you are also the you that you think you are, which is not the you that you think you are."
"There were two kinds of books. Books of discomfort and books of discomfort. The books of discomfort said the 'you' that you think you are is not the you that you are, and the books of discomfort said you are the you that you are, though, you are also the you that you think you are, which is not the you that you think you are."
May 25, 2019
I ran my eyes over all the words in this book, but I don’t believe I really finished it. I need more patience and more experience to fully understand. I will have to return to this one over time.
May 25th: I’ve looked at a few other goodreads reviews for this book and it seems to be a theme that people aren’t quite getting all of it, so I want to ask these questions as I look over it again; who is this book written for, and what does it explore? And what am I expecting to get out of it?
May 25th: I’ve looked at a few other goodreads reviews for this book and it seems to be a theme that people aren’t quite getting all of it, so I want to ask these questions as I look over it again; who is this book written for, and what does it explore? And what am I expecting to get out of it?
July 5, 2021
I finished this book and I’m not sure where to shelve it. With poetry? Philosophy? Memory?
It was appropriate that a book about the left side pages was printed on the most beautiful paper, and bound well. It adds to the tactile experience of reading it.
If you like the complexity of an Aviation cocktail, woodsy gin, sour lemon and Creme de Violet- imagine that as a book, then you will like this book.
It was appropriate that a book about the left side pages was printed on the most beautiful paper, and bound well. It adds to the tactile experience of reading it.
If you like the complexity of an Aviation cocktail, woodsy gin, sour lemon and Creme de Violet- imagine that as a book, then you will like this book.
March 29, 2024
Beautiful. I first read selected poems from this collection in the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology. Verso 4 captured my heart, so I knew I had to read the whole collection. This book is yet another collection of Brand's fabulous, innovative poetry. The Index is particularly fascinating; I enjoyed the way Brand incorporated the acknowledgements into a poetic form, adding more depth to her testament of an Ars Poetica. Please read this collection. I implore you.
September 15, 2024
Reading "Blue Clerk" was like wandering through a fragmented reality of a dream, colored in shades of blue, violet, and lemon. I feel like I've returned from a long voyage to a faraway, non-existent, lonely wharf. I witnessed calm and ferocious sea. I listened to 2 voices, sometimes losing track of who speaks and what it means. Even if not fully understood, this experience left its mark on me. Beautiful.
February 10, 2019
A collection of expressionist prose that is scholarly, complex, striking, and at times, obtuse and hardly accessible. A reading experience I'd recommend in a heartbeat, however. A necessary book for the current era.
October 20, 2021
Absolutely astounding... one of the most creative, insightful, gorgeous books I've read. The concept of the left-hand page is interesting and generative, and what ends up forming is a very clever type of ars poetica.
December 11, 2018
WOW. That was so interesting! I loved everything about it.
July 13, 2019
Really really Good
May 12, 2020
I didn't understand a lot of it, but for the parts that I did, they were amazing.
July 11, 2020
I'll keep this one short and sweet: I love this book! I have never felt more seen by a book. Brand's poetics are so impressive and generative.
August 28, 2021
Weird and wonderful!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews