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Yale Series of Younger Poets
What Noise Against the Cane (Volume 115)
Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, this Yale Series of Younger Poets volume is a lyrical and polyvocal exploration of what it means to fight for yourself
“Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword
“Desiree C. Bailey sings true in her debut. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it transfiguring what a maroon might overhear—a call awaiting response.”—Yusef Komunyakaa
The 115th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, What Noise Against the Cane is a lyric quest for belonging and freedom, weaving political resistance, Caribbean folklore, immigration, and the realities of Black life in America. Desiree C. Bailey begins by reworking the epic in an oceanic narrative of bondage and liberation in the midst of the Haitian Revolution. The poems move into the contemporary Black diaspora, probing the mythologies of home, belief, nation, and womanhood. Series judge Carl Phillips observes that Bailey’s “poems argue for hope and faith equally. . . . These are powerful poems, indeed, and they make a persuasive argument for the transformative powers of steady defiance.”
“Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword
“Desiree C. Bailey sings true in her debut. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it transfiguring what a maroon might overhear—a call awaiting response.”—Yusef Komunyakaa
The 115th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, What Noise Against the Cane is a lyric quest for belonging and freedom, weaving political resistance, Caribbean folklore, immigration, and the realities of Black life in America. Desiree C. Bailey begins by reworking the epic in an oceanic narrative of bondage and liberation in the midst of the Haitian Revolution. The poems move into the contemporary Black diaspora, probing the mythologies of home, belief, nation, and womanhood. Series judge Carl Phillips observes that Bailey’s “poems argue for hope and faith equally. . . . These are powerful poems, indeed, and they make a persuasive argument for the transformative powers of steady defiance.”
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 13, 2021
6 people are currently reading
717 people want to read
About the author
Desiree C. Bailey
1 book9 followersDesiree C. Bailey is the author of What Noise Against the Cane (Yale University Press, 2021), which won the 2020 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry. She is also the author of the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater (O'clock Press, 2016) and has short stories and poems published in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Short Fiction, Callaloo, the Academy of American Poets and elsewhere. Desiree is from Trinidad and Tobago, and Queens, New York. She lives in Providence, RI.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
August 27, 2021
Not since Safiya Sinclair's Cannibal have I been so specifically ensorcelled by the poems of a Caribbean sistren, and Desiree C. Bailey’s voice, echoing from a sea-brined conch shell, carried a resonance so particularly its own that you can’t help but perk your ears at the sound. Revolution, name-reckoning, diasporic tectonic shifts, displacement and wild woman’s warrioring: yes to everything riotous, ungovernable and roaming in these poems. Yes, yes to their every joyous, barnacle-bejewelled yawp.
“Wind-blown. Bone-straight. Bone-white as the breathless. Strung bone up to
make music out of wind. Whisper of the divine at the meat of my scalp. Touch
me like I am a vessel. Like I am the horse. In the morning. In the river mist of oil
sheen. In my chest, a village. Fill me I am hungry. I am stained to the pavement.
The measured strands, silver in the light.”
22/31
#TheSealeyChallenge
“Wind-blown. Bone-straight. Bone-white as the breathless. Strung bone up to
make music out of wind. Whisper of the divine at the meat of my scalp. Touch
me like I am a vessel. Like I am the horse. In the morning. In the river mist of oil
sheen. In my chest, a village. Fill me I am hungry. I am stained to the pavement.
The measured strands, silver in the light.”
22/31
#TheSealeyChallenge
September 8, 2022
What Noise Against the Cane was a powerful, lyrical collection of poetry that touched on everything from the Haitian Revolution to what it's like to be a Black woman in America. Bailey's verses beg to be read aloud. The voice of the ocean runs through the collection through a narrative along the bottom of each page; this device added a moving undercurrent to Bailey's poetry that was incredibly well done.
from "Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade"
our bodies shoved into the mouths of discovery
civilization's march towards more
and more comforts
for the cult of the whitened god
from "Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade"
October 20, 2022
'If not to mirror the span of the swan
pulling out of the swamp
scarring the water with its absence
the story unveiled in the movement of weeds
then salt
then wet wood then muse alight'
('Dancing at the Shrine in Harlem', p49)
pulling out of the swamp
scarring the water with its absence
the story unveiled in the movement of weeds
then salt
then wet wood then muse alight'
('Dancing at the Shrine in Harlem', p49)
February 18, 2022
This collection really had me thinking, picking apart, and evaluating life. Bailey has a way with words that really grip you and pierce your emotions and thoughts. My personal favourites from this collection are: 'Accent', 'Guesswork', 'First American Years', 'A Retrograde' , and 'Extra Virgin Olive Oil'.
Although I wasn't a fan of some of the structures and forms of the poem, her experimentation and inclusion of different forms is something I highly commend. The layout and form of 'La Divina, Mother of Miracles' is one that is predominantly jarring when you first read it. I tried to read this poem a couple different ways because the layout is so odd, but the content is still really thought-provoking and powerful; as is the rest of her poetry. The layout of 'It's Risky to Love in the Season of Hunters' is really memorable as well because the poem is split into three segments and each segment is a different form of poetry! I think that's really interesting and modern.
Bailey's collection is definitely something to pick up if you like overarching themes. She consistently touches upon questions and instance of faith, erasure, culture and nature (such as the sea and water as well as plants and roots).
She doesn't really play with rhyme too much, but there are instances of rhyme and sound play within the collection which really help emphasise a point or convey an emotion, for example. The rhyme often takes you aback and makes you stop and think, which is something I believe was intentional and this collection does intend to provoke thought and internal discussion. The tone leans more towards free-verse and stream of consciousness due to the rhyme and also the excessive enjambment / lack of punctuation.
The 'Notes' section at the end is also really informative. It helped me delve deeper into things I picked up or didn't pick up on within the poems and has given me things to research and really think about.
As much as I think everyone should consider picking up this text and others like it that raise the same questions and internal debates, this particular one is not for you if you prefer structures and traditional poetry styles and rhyme or are not a lover of poetry in general.
Although I wasn't a fan of some of the structures and forms of the poem, her experimentation and inclusion of different forms is something I highly commend. The layout and form of 'La Divina, Mother of Miracles' is one that is predominantly jarring when you first read it. I tried to read this poem a couple different ways because the layout is so odd, but the content is still really thought-provoking and powerful; as is the rest of her poetry. The layout of 'It's Risky to Love in the Season of Hunters' is really memorable as well because the poem is split into three segments and each segment is a different form of poetry! I think that's really interesting and modern.
Bailey's collection is definitely something to pick up if you like overarching themes. She consistently touches upon questions and instance of faith, erasure, culture and nature (such as the sea and water as well as plants and roots).
She doesn't really play with rhyme too much, but there are instances of rhyme and sound play within the collection which really help emphasise a point or convey an emotion, for example. The rhyme often takes you aback and makes you stop and think, which is something I believe was intentional and this collection does intend to provoke thought and internal discussion. The tone leans more towards free-verse and stream of consciousness due to the rhyme and also the excessive enjambment / lack of punctuation.
The 'Notes' section at the end is also really informative. It helped me delve deeper into things I picked up or didn't pick up on within the poems and has given me things to research and really think about.
As much as I think everyone should consider picking up this text and others like it that raise the same questions and internal debates, this particular one is not for you if you prefer structures and traditional poetry styles and rhyme or are not a lover of poetry in general.
January 29, 2022
What Noise Against the Cane is a collection of healing elixir like no other. The poems grab you with their subject matter and hold you firmly as you open up to receive the unfiltered realities that black women face. Desiree C. Bailey has collected experiences and painted them onto a ship of history that engages what you think you know and then takes you higher. This collection of poems gives character to the Haitian Revolution and a voice to the Sea. It is the first time I have ever experienced a poem of such reverence as “La Pastora”. A poignant piece that is physically printed landscape in the center of a book. It forces you to change your perspective. Like a thread in a quilt, the voice of the sea trails from the first piece to the closing piece in an Island tongue that those who grew up around members of the Caribbean will find strongly familiar. The clever use of the sea is as familiar as arriving at a family reunion. The voice of the sea for me is Auntie, is encouragement, is laced with all the things that make Black Girls Magic and then it hits you with the vulnerability that makes poets so great. Like this stanza,
when my sea-spirit rises
out of the waves and spins
a wreath onto my head
who then
is my master what
claim of brand
upon my flesh
followed by the sea,
down down to di bottom, somewhere she call di margins. I use to be on every kiss-muh-ass page,
Touching on all the things that concern us from our past to how we are able to deal in the present with our bodies and our lives. Poetry renders a moment of reflection on the things we never get around to talking about. The author crafted space and invites the reader to heal. I appreciated the voice of the sea hinting on the physical ailments we avoid, only to find the poet had to deal with it four poems later. That was reality for me, a very real and tangible moment. I am so happy to have finished this collection and perch it on my shelves. The sea is smiling. May you also enjoy and feel moved and touched by the ever-present voice of the sea.
when my sea-spirit rises
out of the waves and spins
a wreath onto my head
who then
is my master what
claim of brand
upon my flesh
followed by the sea,
down down to di bottom, somewhere she call di margins. I use to be on every kiss-muh-ass page,
Touching on all the things that concern us from our past to how we are able to deal in the present with our bodies and our lives. Poetry renders a moment of reflection on the things we never get around to talking about. The author crafted space and invites the reader to heal. I appreciated the voice of the sea hinting on the physical ailments we avoid, only to find the poet had to deal with it four poems later. That was reality for me, a very real and tangible moment. I am so happy to have finished this collection and perch it on my shelves. The sea is smiling. May you also enjoy and feel moved and touched by the ever-present voice of the sea.
November 16, 2021
4.5 stars
September 28, 2021
Bailey unearths, scratches out identity and direction, boils and pours. To describe the substance of her poetry requires us to eschew the trite. The book is brief, but viscous with history and myth, music and oppressions. The works do for Haiti, for the black diaspora, what chronicles cannot: they swell with the psychic effects upon ancestors and descendants. I don't know what to do with it, but it insists I understand.
A taste:
This one stays on my shelf.
A taste:
harvest of breasts and teeth their dream
to make me unreal to make me a voiceless fog
This one stays on my shelf.
June 10, 2022
An excellent collection of poems, and I have to say, the best of the group is the one relegated to the margins of the book (“Sea Voice”). Take the time to read that one straight through. Or better yet, if you can, find the audio edition and hear Bailey read it herself. It’s a stunner.
December 30, 2022
Outstanding!
thoughts coming shortly
thoughts coming shortly
Read
July 27, 2023The italicized monologue at the bottom of this collection was a stunner on its own.
Read
June 3, 2024I read all of it, I understood little of it, I enjoyed less of it.
May 26, 2025
Stunning!
June 19, 2022
"Don't ask me why I say \ wor-tuh \
in one sentence, then
\ war-der \ in the next. You already
know. It's not difficult
to understand. It's that you choose
not to. The jury is still out
on whether being from just
one country is a luxury
or a limitation
but you should know
why, how
a voice, an accent
drifts between the sounds
of two or more shores.
All your first world knowledge
and you still can't help
but say what you do
or don't detect
as if I am trivia
as if my voice
is contraband
smuggled
through your God-
given borders."
// Accent
The first poem, roughly half of the collection, is the most hauntingly striking thing I have read in recent memory. "Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade", set during the Haitian Revolution "in this garden the white man veils his face / from his gods", examines the violence of slavery and the struggle for freedom. Intimate, fragmentary, fierce: "I am no slave / I am the first language / spinning spinning / beyond the fields." It's a war chant: "I give what is mine to give / I return the wound." In the last poem, a modern sequel, she transforms: "I belong to the foam that singes."
The ones in between them are no less powerful as they tap into Bailey's Trinibagonian heritage and her experiences as a Black woman in the US. She's "forever of lineage riven and ruptured", always forced to establish her existence through self-assertions, "I am I", to prevent "speaking [herself] into disappearance". At the bottom of the page, throughout the book, the sea speaks out in Trinidadian Creole: " I was at di center ah dis book, ah what she call it? Di narrative. But she, Miss Poet push me out!... Down here I does feel it all." It's a communal repository of memory, resistance and rebellion.
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
in one sentence, then
\ war-der \ in the next. You already
know. It's not difficult
to understand. It's that you choose
not to. The jury is still out
on whether being from just
one country is a luxury
or a limitation
but you should know
why, how
a voice, an accent
drifts between the sounds
of two or more shores.
All your first world knowledge
and you still can't help
but say what you do
or don't detect
as if I am trivia
as if my voice
is contraband
smuggled
through your God-
given borders."
// Accent
The first poem, roughly half of the collection, is the most hauntingly striking thing I have read in recent memory. "Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade", set during the Haitian Revolution "in this garden the white man veils his face / from his gods", examines the violence of slavery and the struggle for freedom. Intimate, fragmentary, fierce: "I am no slave / I am the first language / spinning spinning / beyond the fields." It's a war chant: "I give what is mine to give / I return the wound." In the last poem, a modern sequel, she transforms: "I belong to the foam that singes."
The ones in between them are no less powerful as they tap into Bailey's Trinibagonian heritage and her experiences as a Black woman in the US. She's "forever of lineage riven and ruptured", always forced to establish her existence through self-assertions, "I am I", to prevent "speaking [herself] into disappearance". At the bottom of the page, throughout the book, the sea speaks out in Trinidadian Creole: " I was at di center ah dis book, ah what she call it? Di narrative. But she, Miss Poet push me out!... Down here I does feel it all." It's a communal repository of memory, resistance and rebellion.
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
January 14, 2022
In this collection Bailey pulls on her background as a native of Trinidad and Tobago who grew up in New York City. I really enjoyed this collection--it is sad, it is proud, it is the Caribbean, and it is New York. It is historical, it is modern. And, of course, it is the sea.
Though the Caribbean focus in this book is Haiti, that is to pull on Haiti's history as the first black republic, born of a successful slave revolt. A beacon of the Caribbean.
She also considers her childhood in New York, where teachers assumed she did could not read English, and where so many worked to get rid of their accents (their island selves).
Across the bottom of the pages in this book, Bailey has included another poem--spoken in the voice of the sea, in a Trinidadian patois. I actually read this piece trough, and then went back to read the other poemns and re-read the sea's voice.
Though the Caribbean focus in this book is Haiti, that is to pull on Haiti's history as the first black republic, born of a successful slave revolt. A beacon of the Caribbean.
She also considers her childhood in New York, where teachers assumed she did could not read English, and where so many worked to get rid of their accents (their island selves).
Across the bottom of the pages in this book, Bailey has included another poem--spoken in the voice of the sea, in a Trinidadian patois. I actually read this piece trough, and then went back to read the other poemns and re-read the sea's voice.
January 19, 2023
"chasing echoes
nailed to system
free in sound"
(pg. 45)
This is the first poetry book I have ever completed, and the first book I finished in 2023. I quite enjoyed its artistic nature, weaving a story of womanhood, the African American experience, and even storytelling itself. The emotional vulnerability found in poetry is hard to find anywhere else. Certainly an experience to read, and a brutal reminder of all of the scars that mar American history and its present... And what a cool idea to have two stories on each page! The flowing lines of the voice of the sea along the bottom add so much character and perspective into the brain of the author!!
This artistic writing is inspirational and I have enjoyed dissecting it for my English class!
nailed to system
free in sound"
(pg. 45)
This is the first poetry book I have ever completed, and the first book I finished in 2023. I quite enjoyed its artistic nature, weaving a story of womanhood, the African American experience, and even storytelling itself. The emotional vulnerability found in poetry is hard to find anywhere else. Certainly an experience to read, and a brutal reminder of all of the scars that mar American history and its present... And what a cool idea to have two stories on each page! The flowing lines of the voice of the sea along the bottom add so much character and perspective into the brain of the author!!
This artistic writing is inspirational and I have enjoyed dissecting it for my English class!
June 9, 2025
I am currently in a class on Black authors from the colonial era to the postbellum era, and I was struck at the first poem's parallels to the Antebellum South and in particular, Harriet Jacobs' observations that as a female enslaved woman, what was "proper womanhood" for a white woman was something that would endanger a Black woman. The fact she would later, in this collection, write a poem about Harriet Jacobs was fascinating. Another fascinating thing about the poetry collection as a whole was the intertextual, often sapphic narrative between the poet and the ocean goddess, Mami Wata. I would recommend this to literally anyone.
December 14, 2021
Beautiful, devastating, deep and rich. I needed to read each stanza multiple times to absorb as much as possible and to turn each word, image, in my mind. Descriptions of womanhood and grasping at our mothers' and grandmothers' culture when being part of a diaspora really connected with me. The tragedy and violence of enslavement and anti-Black racism and murder, and the continued vein of perseverance, rebellion, and defiance are strong emotions throughout each poem. I highly recommend this volume.
December 15, 2022
My favorite of this semester’s readings. Beautiful poetry, but the best part by far is the Afro-Caribbean diasporic ocean goddess whose voice runs along the bottom of each page as if lurking in the depths of the sea, a powerful undercurrent that reminds you of the spiritual, historical, and cultural forces that shaped the poet’s voice. And the meta-commentary! The way the goddess speaks about the poet pushing her into the margins! It’s a brilliantly complex exploration of identity, language, and how the past echoes in the present.
August 8, 2021
Formally brilliant & unforgettable. This collection has a whole poem, in the voice of the sea, printed in the bottom margin of the book running through the whole of it in the undercurrent (& doing A LOT of work re: disembodiments of history & memory in diasporic poetics). I'm gonna be thinking about this opening poem especially for a while - a 30+ page chant written with voices from the Haitian revolution. This book is absolutely a must read of 2021
Read
December 24, 2021In WHAT NOISE AGAINST THE CANE, Trinidadian American poet Desiree Bailey honors her Caribbean roots, paying homage to the folks who were enslaved, resisted, and rose up during the Haitian Revolution. I really enjoyed Desiree’s use of space and the fact that there was a poem written in Trinidadian Creole, from the perspective of a sea goddess, interwoven throughout the entire collection. Desiree also writes about the experiences of those in the Caribbean diaspora in the U.S.
Read
May 10, 2022"'What Noise Against the Cane' is an epic dedicated to straddling multiple shores: the Haitian Revolution as well as American police brutality; migration as well as dispossession; the enduring aches and affirmations of Caribbean womanhood."
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...
October 10, 2022
Torn between ratings, so I’ll round up. Hit and miss for me, but I read it in a sitting, so clearly the power of it was conveyed. A lot of admirable lines, and I appreciate the craft of the long poem- and I don’t typically make any special note of craft or mention it. The ‘Sea Voice’ poem running through the margins reminded me of the Crane’s marginal poem in The Bridge, which any allusion of will generally win me over.
October 27, 2022
Bailey’s poetry breathes and pulsates with waves of sensuality, history, mythology, and politics—and it has a powerful mixture of beautiful syntax and abrupt, awkward breaks or endings that disrupt any romanticization of the worlds her speakers bring to life. The footnotes tell the poems story in deliberate ways that make it impossible to not view this collection as doing real work: archiving, reminding, and calling to action.
November 24, 2025
"I have to squeeze muhself inside she idea."
i love engaging with spoken colloquial languages that maybe were never written, but is in the rhythm of how a person and place talks now. the ebb and flow of the sea was hauntingly captured across the course of the entire book.
i'm thinking a lot about form and experimentation and what could be employed to really take it there, but i greatly enjoyed it in the form that it exists in and look forward to more by bailey.
i love engaging with spoken colloquial languages that maybe were never written, but is in the rhythm of how a person and place talks now. the ebb and flow of the sea was hauntingly captured across the course of the entire book.
i'm thinking a lot about form and experimentation and what could be employed to really take it there, but i greatly enjoyed it in the form that it exists in and look forward to more by bailey.
September 12, 2021
I generally found these poems quite compelling. I wasn't sure at first about the alternate speaker along the lower margin, but she grew on me. There were other times when some of the craft choices didn't serve the text as well - I'm pretty much always going to consider an author's choice to make me turn a book sideways to read an affectation.
August 9, 2022
The first poem in this collection, Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade, is absolutely phenomenal, and I recommend picking up this collection for that poem alone. The first poem sets the tone for the rest of the collection and deals with themes of immigration and belonging, the black diaspora, colonialism, and the black experience in the US. Highly recommend!
August 2, 2024
a great collection of poetry calling into question how woc cope with the lasting impacts of colonialism and whiteness. how it envelopes everything even your own outlook on life & how it holds you back from the things you desire or want because they & you aren't seen as important or worthy. every poem felt like a call back to an ancestor in pain.
November 25, 2025
I’m very new to poetry so it’s hard to know what marks a good collection but since this was primarily focused on the area of my dissertation study I really enjoyed it. It felt very vibrant and passionate, and really encapsulates more than the words in the pages - there was a rhythm which reflected the cultural vitality!
July 10, 2021
Phenomenal debut. There are three distinct sections/parts to "What Noise Against the Cane" yet the entire collection works so smoothly, creating what feels like an epic both in terms of scope and proportion. I can't wait to read Bailey's future work.
August 2, 2022
A tour-de-force. “Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade” is the real magnum opus here, but all of these are amazing. “It’s Risky to Love in the Season of Hunters” and “Accent” hit particularly hard for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews