A Blood Condition

by Kayo Chingonyi

"A Blood Condition is one of the most arresting and beautiful set of poems of this or any year" Guardian, Books of the Year 2021

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA POETRY AWARD
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S. ELIOT PRIZE*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION

The moving, expansive, and dazzling second collection from award-winning poet Kayo Chingonyi

Kayo Chingonyi's remarkable second collection follows the course of a 'blood condition' as it finds its way to deeply personal grounds. From the banks of the Zambezi river to London and Leeds, these poems speak to how distance and time, nations and history, can collapse within a body.

With astonishing lyricism and musicality, this is a story of multiple inheritances -- of grief and survival, renewal and the painful process of letting go -- and a hymn to the people and places that run in our blood.

Genres: Poetry, African Literature, Nonfiction, Africa

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2021

About the author

Kayo Chingonyi is a fellow of the Complete Works programme for diversity and quality in British Poetry and the author of two pamphlets, Some Bright Elegance (Salt, 2012) and The Colour of James Brown’s Scream (Akashic, 2016). His first full-length collection, Kumukanda, was published in June 2017 by Chatto & Windus and went on to win the Dylan Thomas Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award. Kayo has been invited to read from his work at venues and events across the UK and internationally. He was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and has completed residencies with Kingston University, Cove Park, First Story, The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Royal Holloway University of London in partnership with Counterpoints Arts. He was Associate Poet at the Institute of Contemporary Arts from Autumn 2015 to Spring 2016, Anthony Burgess Fellow at Manchester University in 2018, and co-edited issue 62 of Magma Poetry and the Autumn 2016 edition of The Poetry Review. He is now poetry editor for The White Review. Kayo is also an emcee, producer, and DJ and regularly collaborates with musicians and composers both as a poet and a lyricist.

Reviews

[Dominic Gowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

first poetry book read! 🐟🐍

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Kayo Chingonyi's second collection and it is a fine read. Poetry, it seems to me, often feels like it is the most personal of writing. Even when the subjects don't appear personal. In the case of A Blood Condition the personal is much more upon the surface.

It starts and ends with two poems about Nyaminyami, a river god of the Zambezi. These four poems are about the implacability of nature and humanities illusions about our control over them, which is temporary. Water, as the Tenth Doctor says in Waters of Mars, always wins. Or as Chingonyi says:

those who know water know
eventually water will pass through
even the smallest gap in what appears
to the human eye to be a solid mass

Chingonyi varies the structure and form of his poems to. There is a seven poem section 'Origin Myth' that consists of seven sonnets each of which begins with the first line of the previous sonnet. This tells the story of the blood condition that gives the collection its title. This blood condition is never named but it doesn't need to be. I am glad that all the poetry reading I have done over the last two years now means I can spot a sonnet without having to be told it is one.

But the blood condition might not just be an illness. It might be the history we carry within us of family and nation. Of who we are and where we come from. Perhaps I'm reading too much into things. It is a mistake I often make, but I suppose it is the right of a reader to take from a writer our own understanding - or misunderstandings.

When I did geography (as my minor subject) at University I learned that the shape of a valley could tell you how it was created. A U-shaped valley was created by a glacier. A V-Shaped valley was created by a river. The V-shaped ones always seemed more like cuts in the Earth than the U-Shaped one. This is a V-shaped collection. It's cuts deep into you at points. It's never savage, but it makes a mark on you though. They are graceful.

a wayfarer's tune
Written in a shack
on a four track
in the 70s
guitar
a voice threaded with regret
each word a promise
that in the end
the singer could not keep
from Chingola Road Cemetery. p28

These poems are not fireworks. They don't need to be. Their power comes from their gentleness. If that makes sense. Sometimes it feels like a long elegy or multi-verse song of loss. The loss of the natural world, of the past, of family, and of youth.

The thing is perhaps it was meant to be none of these things. I can only write what I feel and felt. I really liked this collection. I haven't read his first, Kumukanda, but I will seek it out now. He has a powerful voice, but he never seems to need to raise it to make a point. If he is, indeed, even trying to make one. Perhaps he just wants to bare witness or to give a voice to something. Perhaps he just to write poetry. What do I know?

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"wish that we could lie here
for the rest of our lives
the blades of the fan above us
whirling like a tanguera's skirt
everything outside this room
a distant country
let me be this unguarded always
speaking without need of words
because breath is the oldest language
any of us know"

// interior w/ ceiling fan


The titular 'blood condition' of Kayo Chingonyi's second poetry collection is HIV, recently traced back to 1920s Kinshasa. "Origin Myth", a set of seven sonnets where the last line of a previous poem becomes the first line of the next one, an unbroken circle, traces its history. "Genealogy", a series of short poems, is much more familial and personal, excavating bloodlines. Chingonyi bookends the collection with four poems about Nyaminyami, the Zambezi River God who looks like a serpent-fish hybrid: two at the beginning, two at the end. They again depict a history of yet another sort—a people's relationship with their lands and how modernity changes it over time.

Hence, heritage and legacy are running themes across the collection. The boons and curses of ancestry, the things that we pass down across generations, the reluctant weight on the shoulders of descendants. Said another way, it is about how a body holds the past within itself, a tiny microcosmic repository of the macrocosms of society and nation. The blood condition is then what situates us in time, what gives our lives a frame of reference. It is a reckoning with one's inheritance. Chingonyi is understated and quiet, not relying on theatrics or bombast yet it's powerful just the same. That being said, I loved his first collection, Kumukanda, more.

[Georgia James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection includes some of the most thoughtful descriptions of mourning and loss I’ve ever read. Jesus. I might have a quick cry.

[Rosamund · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection, both delicate and muscular. Chingonyi draws on all his heritages and sources of belonging, London, the North East and Zambia.

[agnes ♡♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I am not the best person to comment on a poetry book as I am not one to read poetry but I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poems.

Favourite quote: ““Who am I to recognize, here, in what I know is a portrait
from a time that cannot, any longer, be?”

[Annikky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this collection up randomly in an Estonian bookshop (kudos to Puänt for their interesting selection) and really liked it, although I lack the context to fully understand all the nuances. It prompted me to read up on Zambia and Nyami Nyami, which I really appreciated.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

Drawn together with the graveside scene why is everything I read a sort of mourning

it's really quite good & very controlled I think Kayo is holding things back but not- repression, so much as control. a compliment

[Luce · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way Kayo Chingonyi describes death, grief, mourning, loss, everything bound up in it, is so simple. Nothing is overcomplicated but the emotions are so raw. So sharp.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the energy and rhythms in the writing. I was interested to read this collection but wasn’t particularly expecting to relate to the poems. Blam, Chingonyi was, for some time at least, a Geordie -

“we flew south -
and, though
wandsworth
alleyways
banished howays
from my diction,
still my heart
has a northerly aspect”

Yes please.

[Hollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful depiction of lineage, loss, culture and identity

[Sully · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely in awe of this. How can writing be so stunning? I've been really lucky with recommendations recently, and have read such sophisticated and mature literature that I'm definitely going to get a dud soon. But that is ok because this was so worth it. This is an incredibly beautiful collection that speaks on inheritance, and what lies in the blood of a person, which is everything from love, to names, to death, to bodies of water. There is so much clarity in this collection, and it's lyrical in a way that reminds me of the long lines of connection between poetry and music, between verses and verses. I'm still a little startled by how lovely this was as a whole read -- it's a pleasure to read the structure of this collection, and find meaning in the tracklist, let's say. It's really nice how framing is used again and again with such softness -- I see it being done, and I am cushioned by it.

But individual poems stand out for me too -- Arguments in favour of the sea; interior w/ ceiling fan; the combo punch-up that is [Incantation] [Clearance] [Y2K]. We were all stuck on Nyaminyami for a very long time, enchanted by the folk-tale, and the fish, and the fish yet again. So much draws you into each poem, so that when you read on, you are still thinking of those previous images, those previous stories, and that makes for a powerful experience. This collection is so beautiful. I'm going to make everyone read it.

[Audrey Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking heeeelllll. This was so moving. There is a strong and confident sadness through all of it, that moves so quickly you learn so much and feel so much impact by only a few lines per poem. It feels vulnerable in a way that is digestible but maintaining its impact. Such a stunning read.

The ‘origin myth’ section in the first half is incredible. The highlight of the collection for me. It’s a narrative depicting the cycle of a blood condition in 7 or 8 quick consecutive poems. It’s gut punching. I adored it. Read this collection. It’s so good.

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite book of poems by a poet whose work I hadn’t encountered before. I don’t know who recommended it to me, but I’m very grateful.

[Tamsine · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘A blood condition’ begins with an introduction to the Zambezi river after which the country was named and it is given the name of the river God, ‘Nyaminyami’. It illustrates the juxtaposition between the perception and treatment of the landscape by colonialists/capitalists versus the original inhabitants.

The assault of industrialising the river and building a dam is not one without consequence, ‘believers knew the waters raged in the river god’s name that in the quest for progress we often make mistakes make beds in which our descendants sleep badly in our haste to acquire to own to feed a monster which cannot be sated for all you fill with minerals it’s waiting capacious mouth’. I understand the monster to be capitalism rather than the part serpent river god as told, ‘ don’t believe what they tell you about serpents’. This also illustrates the running theme throughout that the burdens of consequence of assaults on nature and people are left to and inherited by those who come after, descendants.

This collection flows like a river weaving into the landscape of Zimbabwe, the condition of HIV by the internal rivers of blood, and consequence of it all.

The sonnets of ‘Origin Myth’ portray the snowball effect of inheritance; each subsequent sonnet begins with the last line of the one before. The profession of HIV and its effects snowballing into a pandemic felt the world over.

The poem ‘Forgive’ depicts an apology of the author to a friend who passed and how the author feels he did not aptly express his gratitude to his friend when present in ‘the land of the living’, he says, ‘had I know the words bruv, what is good would be the last words of our correspondence I would have told you how the table and chairs in your mother’s kitchen rebuilt me. I would have asked if you remembered the day we heard Krystal klear on rinse and glimpsed joy long enough to dance.’ The biggest regret is not to have shown gratitude for what was had when he had it. He does not beg for his friends return but rather he regrets to not have expressed his gratitude before his friend’s passing. I see an internalisation of guilt (maybe survivors guilt?), a big theme in this collection too.

I enjoyed ‘16 Bars for the Bits’, a 16 bar rap verse form which illustrates the bits, where the author grew up; the repetition gives a sense of growing anxiety and intensity of being somewhere so fast paced that is not possible to run fast enough, changing people into extremes or into people they do not want to be with promises of freedom, ‘towers that balance at heights beyond reason a beacon for dreamers and schemers and heathens you can find angels behaving like demons’.

‘Heirlooms’ was a favourite, the theme portrayed the things people leave behind and the things we carry from them, a beautiful metaphor for sometimes keeping the things that hold trauma, ‘I cut vegetables with the knife my mother reached for in rage. I remember the sound of metal scraping wood; the door I had just grown strong enough to hold closed’. This is layered as it is clear that the author loved his mother and was devastated by her death but shows the complexity of loss, that navigating it isn’t as simple as being sad.

‘Genealogy’ was so clever, showing how things are transferred through bloodlines and the effect of different losses, what is inherited. I like the individual titles being a play on mundane everyday objects and concepts brought into the context of the authors life and perception, an earlier reference to ‘Wittgenstein’s thesis’ on language in another poem, ‘landscape w/ motorway’, how language illustrates different pictures in different minds; an example is ‘[Conference Call]’ where the author goes on, ‘A few days before the day we commemorate the day you were laid to rest we reminisce, bring you back to dwell in our midst.’

The passage in ‘interior w/ ceiling fan’, is a favourite, ‘let me be this unguarded always speaking without need of words because breath is the oldest language any of us know’. It depicts the connectedness that vulnerability allows us and that life connects us. I really love it.

The collection ends like it begins with two poems about the Nyaminyami, and depicts the forgiveness of nature, ‘know this to be nyaminyami testing the limits of human ingenuity calling out to a lover who is constant as the motion of water’. The river god, will be constant, there’s this idea that there is a constant force we do not understand but will always be constant, that nature should be cared for as it is and embraced with gratitude as long as we live.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All clear. Sat in bed you cry until / streetlights glance the lattice of the blinds, / your heart a boulder rolling down a hill / your optimism toughened to a rind / effective, if a little unrefined. / And though, for now, you’re spared the hereafter / there are depths of fear no words can capture.” With the extraordinary ‘Origin Myth’ sequence of seven sonnets at its heart — a sequence in which each poem’s last and first lines interlink — Kayo Chingonyi’s A Blood Collection stands proudly as one of the most accomplished recent poetry collections, building on and surpassing his brilliant debut Kumukanda. There’s a kind of minimalism at work here, an utter faith in white space, quiet feeling and emotional exactitude that pays off continuously throughout the collection, in the above sequence and the strikingly personal ‘Genealogy’ sequence, as well as the several standalone poems. Chingonyi’s talent speaks for itself: “the frequency // of longing / a pitch so lofty / only a celestial ear / could bend to it”, he writes, and elsewhere, “the part / that ascribes / to darkness / light / here where the landscape / is a long conversation”. Gorgeous musicality + profound linguistic turns define this collection as much as self awareness, as in the masterfully direct ‘interior w/ ceiling fan’: “let me be this unguarded always / speaking without need of words / because breath is the oldest language / any of us know”. These lines alone could render the collection a triumph.

[Katheryn Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this one because it has been longlisted for this year's Jhalak Prize, a prize which seeks to celebrate books by British/British resident BAME writers, and whose generic variety is turning out to be as much a delight this year as it has been in the past.

A Blood Condition is the kind of poetry collection that makes you wonder why you don't read more poetry. I read it through in one sitting, pausing to reread certain lines or poems, I sat with it for a moment, and then I went back to the beginning and read it through again. This is such a wonderfully connected collection, in which you can admire the curation of the whole as well as the composition of individual poems. I loved the rhythm of Kayo Chingonyi's writing, which made reading A Blood Condition such an pleasurable experience. An impressive, moving, and highly readable collection.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something paradoxical about both songs and poems/poetry collections which you come across the first time and think "this one's a grower". There's enough in there that grabs you, but there's also the assurance of deeper riches that will only give themselves up on repeated reading.

I'm a big fan of Kumukanda (the first collection by the same poet), and I'd say A Blood Condition has fewer immediate 'hits', but it runs slow and deep, and I love the thought that I'll rejoin it at different parts of my journey. Big thanks, appreciation, and respect to Mr Chingonyi.

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t find these as consistently compelling as the poems in the second half of Kumukanda, but these are operhaps a more intimate set of poems, tied to ordinary occasions and moments in life. I very much liked the cycle of poems about blood-borne illness where the last line of each poem was also the first line of the next, and the last poem in the cycle linked back to the first, letting form embody the theme of contagion.

[Jemma Crosland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this poetry collection up for a read around the world challenge I'm taking part in this year.
I loved the flow between the poems, from the last line mirroring the first line of the next. My favourite line being "glimpsed joy long enough to dance."
It was emotional, powerful, with the explorations of the human experience, and in particular grief. I would certainly recommend this short yet beautiful collection of poetry.
4 stars

[Apina_lukee_kirjoja · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an interesting thread in these poems of trying to reach something / someone who remains always just out of reach, beyond words and expression. A certain emptiness, a lack.

The multitude of forms in the collection is one manifestation of this: trying to find a vessel into which this thing will go.

Beautiful use of sound.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a really interesting and thought provoking collection. i liked the structure of the poems, they were very lyrical and i could almost hear them being performed out loud in my head.

i appreciated the mix of topics, poem structure and descriptive language used throughout. i look forward to reading this poets debut collection soon.

[Hanzalah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this collection for the cover and for the word “chiaroscuro”. Some parts of it spoke to me, and some parts eluded me. Kayo Chingoyi speaks with many voices. He evokes many places and his poetry feels like odes to people and places forgotten or lost.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly moving. I recommend reading up on the background of the river god, Nyaminyami, and the construction of the Lake Kariba dam. Even just a brief overview of the situation is essential background for reading this collection.

[beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

i picked this booked (possibly for my creative writing assessment) because the poems just flow and the language is so beautiful. i really enjoyed reading it and found a few poems i might use to inspire my creative response

[Sheri Fresonke Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty intense poetry, spoken from the heart by this poet from the Zambezi river area of Africa who moved to London. There's about 50 poems, some about friends, some connected as a series, some in prose poetry form. Varies in style.

[joana Ejiofor · Rating 3 out of 5]

i loved annotating the book and short stories that were included in them but it wasn't really my sort of book i would lean towards and in the end the book s0rt of felt long to read but would recommend if you like short stories

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful new collection of poetry from this brilliant wordsmith, who I have been lucky enough to hear live.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

One word; WOW. 💗

[toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75