Odyssey Calling

by Anthony Vahni Capildeo

Listen. Blue.
The flow of blue capillaries.
Sleepy fish, all blue in their flight...

Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian Scottish writer inspired by other voices, ranging from live Caribbean connexions and an Indian diaspora background to the landscapes where Capildeo travels and lives. Their poetry (seven books and four pamphlets) includes Measures of Expatriation, awarded the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2016. Following a DPhil in Old Norse literature, Capildeo has worked in academia; in culture for development, with Commonwealth Writers; and as an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer. Capildeo held the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship and Harper-Wood Studentship at Cambridge, and more recently a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellowship at the University of Leeds.

Genres: Poetry

44 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Anthony Vahni Capildeo FRSL is a Trinidadian Scottish writer inspired by other voices, ranging from live Caribbean connexions and an Indian diaspora background to the landscapes where Capildeo travels and lives. Their poetry (seven books and four pamphlets) includes Measures of Expatriation, awarded the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2016. Following a DPhil in Old Norse literature, Capildeo has worked in academia; in culture for development, with Commonwealth Writers; and as an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer. Capildeo held the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship and Harper-Wood Studentship at Cambridge, and a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellowship at the University of Leeds, and is currently Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York.

Reviews

[Carrie Etter]

A wonderful hybrid pamphlet/chapbook bringing together different odysseys: prose describing an installation designed to engage people more positively, relaxedly with poetry; a poem responding to Homer's Odyssey; a poem on Windrush; and various poems on the sea and birds. A delight.

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich, complex pamphlet that seems to open up, in its few pages, so many avenues for thought and play and imagination. A range of poetic narratives are collected here, including an interesting hybrid-essay that explores an art installation and its poetics of 'active silence'; there are also two luminous poetry sequences which respond to the Odyssey and to Windrush respectively. This intelligent book is a shifting hymn to migration, flight, islands, and the territorialisation of the sea.

[Salvador Db · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vahni Capildeo’s turns Odysseus’ voyage into that of the immigrants who arrive into a land of the same old gods under new guises. They transport us then to England and the saga of other seafarers: the Windrush generation. Capildeo’s exploration of their plight almost reads like an epic poem. This short and tender book concludes with poems that paint frescoes of modern life: coffee, birds and the ocean. Like the omens of Greek mythology, these symbols hold inside much more than meets the eye. Capildeo gives the reader a clue in this regard when they announce in their opening poem: “Listen for the seals. / What do they sound like? / They sound like ghosts.”

[Cara L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words you can dive into and swim in. Words you want to stay in. One bit, Spindrift Silences, I packed bags and moved into a few days, pages unturning. This was recommended to me and I would recommend it to you.