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The Perseverance
Featured on NPR's Morning Edition
A Best Book of the Year at The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Poetry School, New York Public Library, and Entropy Magazine
Winner of the Ted Hughes Award, Rathbones Folio Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award; finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Reading the West Book Award
In the wake of his father’s death, the speaker in Raymond Antrobus’ The Perseverance travels to Barcelona. In Gaudi’s Cathedral, he meditates on the idea of silence and sound, wondering whether acoustics really can bring us closer to God. Receiving information through his hearing aid technology, he considers how deaf people are included in this idea. “Even though,” he says, “I have not heard / the golden decibel of angels, / I have been living in a noiseless / palace where the doorbell is pulsating / light and I am able to answer.”
The Perseverance is a collection of poems examining a d/Deaf experience alongside meditations on loss, grief, education, and language, both spoken and signed. It is a book about communication and connection, about cultural inheritance, about identity in a hearing world that takes everything for granted, about the dangers we may find (both individually and as a society) if we fail to understand each other.
A Best Book of the Year at The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Poetry School, New York Public Library, and Entropy Magazine
Winner of the Ted Hughes Award, Rathbones Folio Prize, and Somerset Maugham Award; finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and Reading the West Book Award
In the wake of his father’s death, the speaker in Raymond Antrobus’ The Perseverance travels to Barcelona. In Gaudi’s Cathedral, he meditates on the idea of silence and sound, wondering whether acoustics really can bring us closer to God. Receiving information through his hearing aid technology, he considers how deaf people are included in this idea. “Even though,” he says, “I have not heard / the golden decibel of angels, / I have been living in a noiseless / palace where the doorbell is pulsating / light and I am able to answer.”
The Perseverance is a collection of poems examining a d/Deaf experience alongside meditations on loss, grief, education, and language, both spoken and signed. It is a book about communication and connection, about cultural inheritance, about identity in a hearing world that takes everything for granted, about the dangers we may find (both individually and as a society) if we fail to understand each other.
92 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2018
35 people are currently reading
1755 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Antrobus
17 books121 followersRaymond Antrobus is a deaf poet and teacher. He has won the Ted Hughes Award and became the first poet to be awarded the Rathbones Folio Prize. About Can Bears Ski?, his first picture book, he says, "It's the book I could see myself reaching for as a child, and I can't wait to have it exist in the world.” He lives in England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 169 reviews
January 30, 2021
What an amazing book of poetry, focused on the Deaf (dealing with hearing loss since birth) and deaf (dealing with hearing loss later in life) experience. The poems are intensely emotional and intensely intelligent, and are not only about conversation and its difficulties, but are also in conversation with each other, with past poems (what were you thinking, Ted Hughes?), history, and society's treatment of the d/Deaf. Just look at these lines from the middle of 'I Move through London Like a Hotep' and not be impressed:
Tabitha’s aunt is all mumble. She either said Do you want a pancake? or You look melancholic. The less I hear the bigger the swamp, so I smile and nod while my head becomes a faint foghorn, a lost river. Why wasn’t I asking her to microphone? When you tell someone you read lips you become a mysterious captain. You watch their brains navigate channels with BSL interpreters in the corner of night TV. Sometimes it’s hard to get back the smooth sailing and you go down with the whole conversation. I’m a haze of broken jars, a purple bucket and only I know there’s a hole in it. On Twitter @justnoxy tweets I can’t watch TV / movies / without subtitles. It’s just too hard to follow. I’m just sitting there pretending and it’s just not worth it. I tweet back you not being able to follow is not your failure. It’s weird, giving the advice you need to someone else, weird as thinking my American friend said I move through London like a Hotep when she actually said I’m used to London life with no sales tax.
*Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Tabitha’s aunt is all mumble. She either said Do you want a pancake? or You look melancholic. The less I hear the bigger the swamp, so I smile and nod while my head becomes a faint foghorn, a lost river. Why wasn’t I asking her to microphone? When you tell someone you read lips you become a mysterious captain. You watch their brains navigate channels with BSL interpreters in the corner of night TV. Sometimes it’s hard to get back the smooth sailing and you go down with the whole conversation. I’m a haze of broken jars, a purple bucket and only I know there’s a hole in it. On Twitter @justnoxy tweets I can’t watch TV / movies / without subtitles. It’s just too hard to follow. I’m just sitting there pretending and it’s just not worth it. I tweet back you not being able to follow is not your failure. It’s weird, giving the advice you need to someone else, weird as thinking my American friend said I move through London like a Hotep when she actually said I’m used to London life with no sales tax.
*Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
April 24, 2019
(3.5) Antrobus is a British-Jamaican poet with an MA in Spoken Word Education who has held multiple residencies in London schools and works as a freelance teacher and poet. His poems dwell on the uneasiness of bearing a hybrid identity – he’s biracial and deaf but functional in the hearing world – and reflect on the loss of his father and the intricacies of Deaf history.
I was previously unaware of the difference between “deaf” and “Deaf,” but it’s explained in the book’s endnotes: Deaf refers to those who are born deaf and learn sign before any spoken language, so they tend to consider deafness part of their cultural identity; deaf means that the deafness was acquired later in life and is a medical consequence rather than a defining trait.
The opening poem, “Echo,” recalls how Antrobus’s childhood diagnosis came as a surprise because hearing problems didn’t run in the family:
Nowadays he uses hearing aids and lip reading, but still frets about how much he might be missing, as expressed in the prose poem “I Move through London like a Hotep” (his mishearing when a friend said, “I’m used to London life with no sales tax”). But if he had the choice, would Antrobus reverse his deafness? As he asks himself in one stanza of “Echo,” “Is paradise / a world where / I hear everything?”
Learning how to live between two worlds is a major theme of the collection, applying not just to the Deaf and hearing communities but also to the balancing act of a Black British identity. I first encountered Antrobus through the recent Black British poetry anthology Filigree (I assess it as part of a review essay in an upcoming issue of Wasafiri literary magazine), which reprints his poem “My Mother Remembers.” A major thread in that volume is art as a means of coming to terms with racism and constructing an individual as well as a group identity. The ghazal “Jamaican British” is the clearest articulation of that fight for selfhood, reinforced by later poems on being called a foreigner and harassment by security staff at Miami airport.
The title comes from the name of the pub where Antrobus’s father drank while his son waited outside. The title poem is an elegant sestina in which “perseverance” is the end word of one line per stanza. The relationship with his father is a connecting thread in the book, culminating in the several tender poems that close the book. Here he remembers caring for his father, who had dementia, in the final two years of his life, and devotes a final pantoum to the childhood joy of reading aloud with him.
A number of poems broaden the perspective beyond the personal to give a picture of early Deaf history. Several mention Alexander Graham Bell, whose wife and mother were both deaf, while in one the ghost of Laura Bridgeman (the subject of Kimberly Elkins’s excellent novel What Is Visible) warns Helen Keller about the unwanted fame that comes with being a poster child for disability. The poet advocates a complete erasure of Ted Hughes’s offensive “Deaf School” (sample lines: “Their faces were alert and simple / Like faces of little animals”; somewhat ironically, Antrobus went on to win the Ted Hughes Award last month!) and bases the multi-part “Samantha” on interviews with a Deaf Jamaican woman who moved to England in the 1980s. The text also includes a few sign language illustrations, including numbers that mark off section divisions.
The Perseverance is an issues book that doesn’t resort to polemic; a bereavement memoir that never turns overly sentimental; and a bold statement of identity that doesn’t ignore complexities. Its mixture of classical forms and free verse, the historical and the personal, makes it ideal for those relatively new to poetry, while those who enjoy the sorts of poets he quotes and tips the hat to (like Kei Miller, Danez Smith and Derek Walcott) will find a resonant postcolonial perspective.
A favorite passage from “Echo” (I’m a sucker for alliteration):
Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck. This post was part of a blog tour highlighting titles from the Rathbones Folio Prize shortlist.
I was previously unaware of the difference between “deaf” and “Deaf,” but it’s explained in the book’s endnotes: Deaf refers to those who are born deaf and learn sign before any spoken language, so they tend to consider deafness part of their cultural identity; deaf means that the deafness was acquired later in life and is a medical consequence rather than a defining trait.
The opening poem, “Echo,” recalls how Antrobus’s childhood diagnosis came as a surprise because hearing problems didn’t run in the family:
I sat in saintly silence
during my grandfather’s sermons when he preached
The Good News I only heard
as Babylon’s babbling echoes.
Nowadays he uses hearing aids and lip reading, but still frets about how much he might be missing, as expressed in the prose poem “I Move through London like a Hotep” (his mishearing when a friend said, “I’m used to London life with no sales tax”). But if he had the choice, would Antrobus reverse his deafness? As he asks himself in one stanza of “Echo,” “Is paradise / a world where / I hear everything?”
Learning how to live between two worlds is a major theme of the collection, applying not just to the Deaf and hearing communities but also to the balancing act of a Black British identity. I first encountered Antrobus through the recent Black British poetry anthology Filigree (I assess it as part of a review essay in an upcoming issue of Wasafiri literary magazine), which reprints his poem “My Mother Remembers.” A major thread in that volume is art as a means of coming to terms with racism and constructing an individual as well as a group identity. The ghazal “Jamaican British” is the clearest articulation of that fight for selfhood, reinforced by later poems on being called a foreigner and harassment by security staff at Miami airport.
The title comes from the name of the pub where Antrobus’s father drank while his son waited outside. The title poem is an elegant sestina in which “perseverance” is the end word of one line per stanza. The relationship with his father is a connecting thread in the book, culminating in the several tender poems that close the book. Here he remembers caring for his father, who had dementia, in the final two years of his life, and devotes a final pantoum to the childhood joy of reading aloud with him.
A number of poems broaden the perspective beyond the personal to give a picture of early Deaf history. Several mention Alexander Graham Bell, whose wife and mother were both deaf, while in one the ghost of Laura Bridgeman (the subject of Kimberly Elkins’s excellent novel What Is Visible) warns Helen Keller about the unwanted fame that comes with being a poster child for disability. The poet advocates a complete erasure of Ted Hughes’s offensive “Deaf School” (sample lines: “Their faces were alert and simple / Like faces of little animals”; somewhat ironically, Antrobus went on to win the Ted Hughes Award last month!) and bases the multi-part “Samantha” on interviews with a Deaf Jamaican woman who moved to England in the 1980s. The text also includes a few sign language illustrations, including numbers that mark off section divisions.
The Perseverance is an issues book that doesn’t resort to polemic; a bereavement memoir that never turns overly sentimental; and a bold statement of identity that doesn’t ignore complexities. Its mixture of classical forms and free verse, the historical and the personal, makes it ideal for those relatively new to poetry, while those who enjoy the sorts of poets he quotes and tips the hat to (like Kei Miller, Danez Smith and Derek Walcott) will find a resonant postcolonial perspective.
A favorite passage from “Echo” (I’m a sucker for alliteration):
the ravelled knot of tongues,
of blaring birds, consonant crumbs
of dull doorbells, sounds swamped
in my misty hearing aid tubes.
Originally published, with images, on my blog, Bookish Beck. This post was part of a blog tour highlighting titles from the Rathbones Folio Prize shortlist.
February 15, 2021
Thoughts soon.
February 4, 2020
[3.5] The Perseverance was an eye-opening read: it broadened my understanding of the d/Deaf experience. The collection is a personal and historical exploration of the subject, ranging from the author’s own observations to e.g. the representation of a deaf character in Dickens. These confessional-type poems employ an array of styles, predominantly free verse in various shapes. I am somewhat allergic to the way publishers market minority literature along the trendy lines of ‘these poems operate in the spaces in between, their haunting lyrics creating new, hybrid territories’ as is done in the back cover here, but the actual content of The Perseverance succeeds, with only one poem that I found particularly jarring. (Conversely, there were six poems I particularly liked.)
December 5, 2021
It’s not that often I put a poetry collection on my ‘eye-opening’ shelf on Goodreads, but this one really was. Raymond Antrobus is a Deaf mixed race Jamaican-British poet, and this collection explores both these aspects of his identity compellingly (and his relationship with his father too). I learnt a lot within the poems, as well as through looking up things that were new to me (one poem is an erasure of a Ted Hughes poem about a deaf school, so I looked it up - quite shocking). There is an interview of the poet at the end of the book by fellow poet Ilya Kaminaky, whose Deaf Republic is also very good, as well as notes and a list of further reading.
But the poems themselves are the stars. I can’t pick a favourite. Among them I loved an incredibly striking one based on an interview of a Deaf Jamaican woman whose mother believed her to be possessed by the Devil as a child, a very kind one called “Closure” about an incident when Antrobus was stabbed as a teen, some fascinating poems drawing on famous nineteenth century figures, and “Dear Hearing World” (“You erased what could have always been poetry.”). Wow.
But the poems themselves are the stars. I can’t pick a favourite. Among them I loved an incredibly striking one based on an interview of a Deaf Jamaican woman whose mother believed her to be possessed by the Devil as a child, a very kind one called “Closure” about an incident when Antrobus was stabbed as a teen, some fascinating poems drawing on famous nineteenth century figures, and “Dear Hearing World” (“You erased what could have always been poetry.”). Wow.
June 17, 2019
“What?
I am a one-word question,
a one-man
patience test.
What?
What language
would we speak
without ears?”
Raymond Antrobus is: a poet; a teacher; a son; British Jamaican; Deaf. All of these attributes colour his writing in this, his latest poetry collection.
The Perseverance explores not only experiences lived, or shared with the author, but also the effects of heritage and culture across generations. He writes of how language is used and how this varies in time and place. What does not change is the near universal insistence that those who communicate by signing adapt as best they can to enable understanding by the hearing.
“How do you write me when I am visual?
“How will someone reading this see my feeling?”
Antrobus writes of his father with whom he had an, at times, difficult relationship but who he cared for during the two years prior to the older man’s death. He writes of his wider family in Jamaica where he visits regularly. Themes of grief and dementia are touched on alongside misunderstandings and the search for forgiveness.
Poems that explore the D/deaf experience are both enlightening and powerful.
“I know the deaf are not lost
but they are certainly abandoned.”
In ‘Miami Airport’ an official is accusatory and unsympathetic even when he realises the traveller cannot hear.
“you don’t look deaf?
can you prove it?”
A sequence of poems written for Samantha share the story of a Deaf Jamaican woman whose mother believed the Devil had taken her child’s voice. There is a lack of appreciation that the deaf have their own language, and anyone can learn it.
Many of the poems are searing in effect. Although not vitriolic there is no shying from the way D/deaf people are treated and how this can lead to isolation.
“Before, all official languages
were oral. The Deaf were a colony
the hearing world ignored.”
‘Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris’ tells of a man shot dead by the police when he was stopped and attempted to speak. His language was sign which meant moving his hands. In the moment this was translated as a threat to safety.
A need to belong, to find acceptance, is a recurring theme delivered with finely balanced potency. A mixed heritage can sometimes lead to dual rejection. It is possible for deafness to be regarded as difference rather than disability.
Notes at the end of the book explain the inspiration for each of the poems included. Although of interest these were not imperative. The writing is accessible; the subject matter and emotion clear. The author takes the reader into his territory. Awareness gleaned is a sobering reminder that to fully understand a situation it must be lived.
I am a one-word question,
a one-man
patience test.
What?
What language
would we speak
without ears?”
Raymond Antrobus is: a poet; a teacher; a son; British Jamaican; Deaf. All of these attributes colour his writing in this, his latest poetry collection.
The Perseverance explores not only experiences lived, or shared with the author, but also the effects of heritage and culture across generations. He writes of how language is used and how this varies in time and place. What does not change is the near universal insistence that those who communicate by signing adapt as best they can to enable understanding by the hearing.
“How do you write me when I am visual?
“How will someone reading this see my feeling?”
Antrobus writes of his father with whom he had an, at times, difficult relationship but who he cared for during the two years prior to the older man’s death. He writes of his wider family in Jamaica where he visits regularly. Themes of grief and dementia are touched on alongside misunderstandings and the search for forgiveness.
Poems that explore the D/deaf experience are both enlightening and powerful.
“I know the deaf are not lost
but they are certainly abandoned.”
In ‘Miami Airport’ an official is accusatory and unsympathetic even when he realises the traveller cannot hear.
“you don’t look deaf?
can you prove it?”
A sequence of poems written for Samantha share the story of a Deaf Jamaican woman whose mother believed the Devil had taken her child’s voice. There is a lack of appreciation that the deaf have their own language, and anyone can learn it.
Many of the poems are searing in effect. Although not vitriolic there is no shying from the way D/deaf people are treated and how this can lead to isolation.
“Before, all official languages
were oral. The Deaf were a colony
the hearing world ignored.”
‘Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris’ tells of a man shot dead by the police when he was stopped and attempted to speak. His language was sign which meant moving his hands. In the moment this was translated as a threat to safety.
A need to belong, to find acceptance, is a recurring theme delivered with finely balanced potency. A mixed heritage can sometimes lead to dual rejection. It is possible for deafness to be regarded as difference rather than disability.
Notes at the end of the book explain the inspiration for each of the poems included. Although of interest these were not imperative. The writing is accessible; the subject matter and emotion clear. The author takes the reader into his territory. Awareness gleaned is a sobering reminder that to fully understand a situation it must be lived.
June 11, 2019
Think of listening to jazz as hearing behind the notes. Think of reading poetry as finding emotion and understanding behind and between the words. This is especially true in Antrobus's poems about his now dead father and about his own deafness in which so much can be misheard or unheard. His poetry is about the blanks in his life left by family loss and by the lost words of everyday communication. Reading The Perseverance, though, I realize he hasn't misunderstood.
March 14, 2021
an absolutely incredible collection concerning the d/Deaf experience.
honorable mentions include: 'Happy Birthday Moon', 'Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris', 'I want the Confidence of', and 'Closure'.
thank you past sophie for spontaneously picking this up.
honorable mentions include: 'Happy Birthday Moon', 'Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris', 'I want the Confidence of', and 'Closure'.
thank you past sophie for spontaneously picking this up.
February 23, 2021
Own voice to the max. I absolutely loved the representation of life as a deaf person in this collection. It it raw, vulnerable, sometimes uncomfortable, but fantastic to say the least. So many topics are coverEd in gorgeous heartfelt words that flow so easily. Just wonderful poetry that is one of a kind. Adding the pictures of signs is everything. I would read this again and again. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
February 22, 2020
Best collection of poems I’ve ever read!!!! Most prominent themes are disability and blackness, written in the cleverest, most moving, gripping manner. I refused to take a break and read it in one sitting, but I’ve dog-eared my favourites to revisit with a fresh mind. Raymond Antrobus is so so so intelligent and creative - I have a new favourite poet. I loved this 🥺
February 13, 2020
incredible. deep. just the best poetry book you'll read this decade, more.
November 29, 2019
This is my third (of four) reviews as part of shadow judging the The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. I am part of the Shadow Panel which will make its own choice from the shortlist for the award.
The Perseverance (named, Antrobus explains in a note, after the London pub where his father used to drink) is a collection of twenty nine poems. In form they range from traditional poems to paragraphs of poetic text to scattered, bare words. There is a dense, angry reversal of a Ted Hughes poem written after Hughes had visited a Deaf school, Hughes' words blocked out in a commentary on his thoughts about the Deaf pupils (look to the next poem, After Reading 'Deaf School' by the Mississippi River for specifics: it refers back scathingly to Hughes' poem and makes a connection with the way French settlers usurped and overwrote the language and land of the indigenous people of the Mississippi region).
In places the verse is supplemented by sign, very sparing, but enough to remind those who don't sign of the other side of the language divide. In others, Antrobus seeks to reproduce the experience of hearing, or speaking, as a Deaf person - the first poem, Echo, begins with the whistling of his ear amps 'as if singing/ to Echo, Goddess of noise' and goes on to recount his own attempts as a child to pronounce his family name 'as 'Antrob' (he doesn't hear 'bus'). Echo is a kind of introduction, leading to the moment that Antrobus's Deafness is identified and hinting at some of the themes of this book - for example family.
Family is central here, especially Antrobus's relationship with is father and his father's history. It is, I think ambivalent, as shown in The Perseverance where his father disappears into the pub for a drink (or drinks) eventually popping out to give his sone 50p. This is a particularly beautiful poem, as well as being particularly sad. Other poems explore Antrobus's father's illness and dementia as well as his father's Jamaican heritage and the impact on him: half English, half Jamaican. And family remain back in Jamaica too.
It's a very keenly observed book, a sharpened book in some places, skewering particular injustices such as the killing of a Black Deaf man by US police (Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris: the 'two guns' referring to the ASL sign for 'Alive') or Antrobus's treatment by US border officials (Miami Airport - a poem where the words literally sublime, turning into a cloud of fragments which both conveys how they may come over to a Deaf person and also shows up the unfairness, the fractured logic and weird presuppositions of a basically racist worldview. Sorry, that sounds very pompous. Just read the poem!)
As well as being inspired by contemporary events and themes Antrobus also looks at Deaf people in history - finding stories for example in Dickens. Doctor Marigold Re-evaluated doesn't give Dickens the same treatment as Ted Hughes but it does very elegantly point up the able-ism of the original story. One of the things about this book that is so impressive is the range of material covered, and the amount of information it imparts - for example, The Shame of Mabel Gardiner Hubbards, who was Deaf and married Alexander Graham Bell.
This is a fascinating and enlightening collection of poems with a very strong voice throughout, staking a claim against ensure and marginalisation. It deserves to be widely read.
The Perseverance (named, Antrobus explains in a note, after the London pub where his father used to drink) is a collection of twenty nine poems. In form they range from traditional poems to paragraphs of poetic text to scattered, bare words. There is a dense, angry reversal of a Ted Hughes poem written after Hughes had visited a Deaf school, Hughes' words blocked out in a commentary on his thoughts about the Deaf pupils (look to the next poem, After Reading 'Deaf School' by the Mississippi River for specifics: it refers back scathingly to Hughes' poem and makes a connection with the way French settlers usurped and overwrote the language and land of the indigenous people of the Mississippi region).
In places the verse is supplemented by sign, very sparing, but enough to remind those who don't sign of the other side of the language divide. In others, Antrobus seeks to reproduce the experience of hearing, or speaking, as a Deaf person - the first poem, Echo, begins with the whistling of his ear amps 'as if singing/ to Echo, Goddess of noise' and goes on to recount his own attempts as a child to pronounce his family name 'as 'Antrob' (he doesn't hear 'bus'). Echo is a kind of introduction, leading to the moment that Antrobus's Deafness is identified and hinting at some of the themes of this book - for example family.
Family is central here, especially Antrobus's relationship with is father and his father's history. It is, I think ambivalent, as shown in The Perseverance where his father disappears into the pub for a drink (or drinks) eventually popping out to give his sone 50p. This is a particularly beautiful poem, as well as being particularly sad. Other poems explore Antrobus's father's illness and dementia as well as his father's Jamaican heritage and the impact on him: half English, half Jamaican. And family remain back in Jamaica too.
It's a very keenly observed book, a sharpened book in some places, skewering particular injustices such as the killing of a Black Deaf man by US police (Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris: the 'two guns' referring to the ASL sign for 'Alive') or Antrobus's treatment by US border officials (Miami Airport - a poem where the words literally sublime, turning into a cloud of fragments which both conveys how they may come over to a Deaf person and also shows up the unfairness, the fractured logic and weird presuppositions of a basically racist worldview. Sorry, that sounds very pompous. Just read the poem!)
As well as being inspired by contemporary events and themes Antrobus also looks at Deaf people in history - finding stories for example in Dickens. Doctor Marigold Re-evaluated doesn't give Dickens the same treatment as Ted Hughes but it does very elegantly point up the able-ism of the original story. One of the things about this book that is so impressive is the range of material covered, and the amount of information it imparts - for example, The Shame of Mabel Gardiner Hubbards, who was Deaf and married Alexander Graham Bell.
This is a fascinating and enlightening collection of poems with a very strong voice throughout, staking a claim against ensure and marginalisation. It deserves to be widely read.
September 30, 2020
Living between two cultures is not always easy, but it is something that British-Jamaican poet Raymond Antrobus has had to live with, but it is not the only divide he has to manage, he is also deaf so he has to live in his quiet world and interact with the loud world. He has expressed these multifaceted identities in the poems in the book.
There are poems about his father, memories from his childhood and his later dementia. The collection is named after the pub that he sat outside while his father was inside drinking. Some of the poems show just how furious he can be, there is a furious rebuttal of Ted Hughes poems, Deaf School, with the original prose redacted and his response, After Reading ‘Deaf School’ by the Mississippi River and the poem that is a tribute to three women murdered in Haiti, For Jesula Gelin, Vanessa Previl and Monique Vincent.
What language
Would we speak
Without ears?
Nowadays, instead of violence,
I write until everything goes
quiet
This is quite a powerful collection, he is justifiable angry, but does not let it become a whinge, rather his energy is directed to raising awareness and making things equal. I liked the addition of sign language amongst the poems too. There are many ways of communicating what we want to say and this collection is another way of doing just that.
Three Favourite Poems
Jamaican British
My Mother Remembers
Happy Birthday Moon
There are poems about his father, memories from his childhood and his later dementia. The collection is named after the pub that he sat outside while his father was inside drinking. Some of the poems show just how furious he can be, there is a furious rebuttal of Ted Hughes poems, Deaf School, with the original prose redacted and his response, After Reading ‘Deaf School’ by the Mississippi River and the poem that is a tribute to three women murdered in Haiti, For Jesula Gelin, Vanessa Previl and Monique Vincent.
What language
Would we speak
Without ears?
Nowadays, instead of violence,
I write until everything goes
quiet
This is quite a powerful collection, he is justifiable angry, but does not let it become a whinge, rather his energy is directed to raising awareness and making things equal. I liked the addition of sign language amongst the poems too. There are many ways of communicating what we want to say and this collection is another way of doing just that.
Three Favourite Poems
Jamaican British
My Mother Remembers
Happy Birthday Moon
May 30, 2024
Raymond Antrobus’s ‘The Perseverance’ is a vivid collection of poetry exploring his experiences as a deaf person while exploring his identity as a Jamaican/British poet. His assortment contains twenty-nine poems providing a variety of formats which are as descriptive and informative as his writing. His diversity is staggering. His use of BSL is incredibly imaginative and shows the reader a language which for a shameful majority of us, is hardly ever seen. I was also thankful for his explanation of the difference between being ‘deaf’ and ‘Deaf’. Deaf refers to people who are born without hearing whereas deaf refers to people who have lost their hearing later in life, this is just one of the many things his collection taught me.
One of my favourite poems in this body of work is his rejuvenation of Ted Hughes dreadful poem ‘Deaf School’ composed after a visit. His example of erasure poetry is brilliant creating something so far from the original, it is worth every artist reading. Another favourite is ‘Dear Hearing World’, his anger is so raw and unimaginable to me, but he conveys it with such passion it makes my heart bleed.
‘I have left Earth in search of an audible God.
I do not trust the sound of yours.’
‘You erased what could have always been poetry.
You taught me I was inferior to standard English expression –
I was a broken speaker, you were a broken interpreter.’
His works are emotionally moving, thought provoking and he leaves no personal emotion hidden, he literally bares his soul and hides nothing from the reader. The subject matter features a huge range, not just his frustrations living in a hearing world, but his family history, dementia, grief, his relationship with his parents, and heritage. An absolutely extraordinary body of work which I cannot recommend enough.
One of my favourite poems in this body of work is his rejuvenation of Ted Hughes dreadful poem ‘Deaf School’ composed after a visit. His example of erasure poetry is brilliant creating something so far from the original, it is worth every artist reading. Another favourite is ‘Dear Hearing World’, his anger is so raw and unimaginable to me, but he conveys it with such passion it makes my heart bleed.
‘I have left Earth in search of an audible God.
I do not trust the sound of yours.’
‘You erased what could have always been poetry.
You taught me I was inferior to standard English expression –
I was a broken speaker, you were a broken interpreter.’
His works are emotionally moving, thought provoking and he leaves no personal emotion hidden, he literally bares his soul and hides nothing from the reader. The subject matter features a huge range, not just his frustrations living in a hearing world, but his family history, dementia, grief, his relationship with his parents, and heritage. An absolutely extraordinary body of work which I cannot recommend enough.
February 1, 2019
In this debut collection, Antrobus explores different aspects of his identity, particularly being d/Deaf and being Jamaican-British. This book also delves into Deaf history, and looks at relationships between fathers and sons. I particularly admired Antrobus's focus on Deaf women in history, as I find I rarely see male poets writing about female historical figures. I found this collection witty, precise, and full of carefully controlled rage. Many of my favourite poems were about some aspect of Deafness, such as Conversation With the Art Teacher (A Translation Attempt) which is a wonderful attempt at capturing the fluidity of Sign and the deficiencies of written English, as well as capturing the art teacher's story. There is also a wonderful take-down of Ted Hughes' poem Deaf School in which Antrobus takes apart Hughes' ignorant depiction of Deaf children. He includes a number of poems about figures in Deaf history, such as Laura Bridgeman and Mable Gardiner Hubbards, as well as a beautiful sequence about a woman known as Samantha, a Deaf Jamaican woman who moved to England in the 1980s. This is a fluid, confident book that explores how we use language and what it means to have a voice. An excellent collection that I recommend.
September 29, 2018
This is an upcoming title I was lucky enough to get an early copy of. This is a brilliant collection, discussing the multiple facets of identity, such as race (the author is of mixed heritage, English and Jamaican), disability, gender etc, and the isolation those identities can/do bring. Antrobus honestly and nakedly describes the fear and ignorance he's encountered due to his race and deafness, sometimes separately, other times combined. It's a passionate, raw account of the erasure of the d/Deaf community that will enlighten as well as shake up readers outside of it. My favourite thing about modern poetry is the variety of different voices that are now, finally, being heard after years of being excluded from the form, and The Perseverance is a poignant, important piece of poetry that will encourage discussion and alleviate loneliness.
March 16, 2019
I think it's difficult to rate poetry collections but I did enjoy this, it had a few really good poems that were amazing and a few that were just okay. Interested to see where the discussion at uni with this will go.
November 24, 2019
Firstly, I want to say thank you to FMCM Associates and The Sunday Times/ University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Awards for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I need to admit that poetry is not something that I read regularly and is not something that I would pick up for myself as a general rule. When I was asked to review this, I was apprehensive as it is not something I would read. However, I would like to read more poetry so I thought I would give it a go. I actually really enjoyed this collection, the poems were so raw and full of the poets emotions. Amongst my favourites were: Echo, The Perseverance, Deaf School and Miami Airport. Please don't misunderstand me, I enjoyed all the poems in this book however the ones listed above were the ones that stood out to me.
Echo; I enjoyed the raw emotion that you could just feel radiating from this poem. You could tell that the poet had put his heart and soul into this and we knew exactly how he was feeling. The Perseverance; the emotion of loss in this book is so apparent, it is a beautiful poem, one in which I want to reach into the book and give the poet a big hug. Miami Airport; a poem which for me screamed discrimination and lack of awareness. Through writing poems like this the poet is spreading the awareness that people should have. I, for one, am certainly more aware and careful in relation to deaf people now I have read this book. Deaf School; wow. A poem with no words, but which speaks volumes. This is such a powerful part of the book which still resonates with me now even though I finished reading this collection of poems a couple of days ago.
Another thing that baffled me with this collection is that at the end the poet explains the difference between Deaf and deaf. Yes there is a difference. "Deaf" people are those born Deaf, who learn to sign before spoken language is learnt. It is part of who they are. "deaf" is in relation to those people who become deaf later on in life. I thought this was fascinating, and the use of this throughout the poetry collection was wonderful.
Whilst I am not somebody that reads poetry on a regular basis I would 100% recommend that you pick this book up. This poetry collection will stay with me for a very long time and it has definitely made me want to pick more up from now on.
"Sign has no future or past; it is a present language."
I need to admit that poetry is not something that I read regularly and is not something that I would pick up for myself as a general rule. When I was asked to review this, I was apprehensive as it is not something I would read. However, I would like to read more poetry so I thought I would give it a go. I actually really enjoyed this collection, the poems were so raw and full of the poets emotions. Amongst my favourites were: Echo, The Perseverance, Deaf School and Miami Airport. Please don't misunderstand me, I enjoyed all the poems in this book however the ones listed above were the ones that stood out to me.
Echo; I enjoyed the raw emotion that you could just feel radiating from this poem. You could tell that the poet had put his heart and soul into this and we knew exactly how he was feeling. The Perseverance; the emotion of loss in this book is so apparent, it is a beautiful poem, one in which I want to reach into the book and give the poet a big hug. Miami Airport; a poem which for me screamed discrimination and lack of awareness. Through writing poems like this the poet is spreading the awareness that people should have. I, for one, am certainly more aware and careful in relation to deaf people now I have read this book. Deaf School; wow. A poem with no words, but which speaks volumes. This is such a powerful part of the book which still resonates with me now even though I finished reading this collection of poems a couple of days ago.
Another thing that baffled me with this collection is that at the end the poet explains the difference between Deaf and deaf. Yes there is a difference. "Deaf" people are those born Deaf, who learn to sign before spoken language is learnt. It is part of who they are. "deaf" is in relation to those people who become deaf later on in life. I thought this was fascinating, and the use of this throughout the poetry collection was wonderful.
Whilst I am not somebody that reads poetry on a regular basis I would 100% recommend that you pick this book up. This poetry collection will stay with me for a very long time and it has definitely made me want to pick more up from now on.
"Sign has no future or past; it is a present language."
March 22, 2022
This isn't something I'd usually read, but Raymond Antrobus' mastery of diction and choice of words elevates to another plain of language.
His experience as a deaf man is not easy. One list poem describes what it was like going through a Miami airport:
why didn't you answer me back there?
you don't look deaf?
do you know sign language?
can you prove it?
who are these photos of?
is this your girlfriend?
why doesn't she look English?
why did you act strange when there was nothing on you?
The Acceptance
Dad’s house stands again, four years
after being demolished. I walk in.
He lies in bed, licks his rolling paper,
and when I ask Where have you been?
We buried you, he says I know,
I know. I lean into his smoke, tell him
I went back to Jamaica. I met your brothers,
losing you made me need them. He says
something I don’t hear. What? Moving lips,
no sound. I shake my head. He frowns.
Disappears. I wake in the hotel room,
heart drumming. I get up slowly, the floor
is wet. I wade into the bathroom,
my father stands by the sink, all the taps
running. He laughs and takes
my hand, squeezes.
His ring digs into my flesh. I open my eyes.
I’m by a river, a shimmering sheet
of green marble. Red ants crawl up
an oak tree’s flaking bark. My hands
are cold mud. I follow the tall grass
by the riverbank, the song. My Orisha,
Oshun in gold bracelets and earrings, scrubs
her yellow dress in the river. I wave, Hey!
She keeps singing. The dress turns the river
gold and there’s my father surfacing.
He holds a white and green drum. I watch him
climb out of the water, drip toward Oshun.
They embrace. My father beats his drum.
With shining hands, she signs: Welcome.
My father beats his drum.
He uses white space and the dense coil of language to deliver the experience of what it means to be deaf. Excellent.
His experience as a deaf man is not easy. One list poem describes what it was like going through a Miami airport:
why didn't you answer me back there?
you don't look deaf?
do you know sign language?
can you prove it?
who are these photos of?
is this your girlfriend?
why doesn't she look English?
why did you act strange when there was nothing on you?
The Acceptance
Dad’s house stands again, four years
after being demolished. I walk in.
He lies in bed, licks his rolling paper,
and when I ask Where have you been?
We buried you, he says I know,
I know. I lean into his smoke, tell him
I went back to Jamaica. I met your brothers,
losing you made me need them. He says
something I don’t hear. What? Moving lips,
no sound. I shake my head. He frowns.
Disappears. I wake in the hotel room,
heart drumming. I get up slowly, the floor
is wet. I wade into the bathroom,
my father stands by the sink, all the taps
running. He laughs and takes
my hand, squeezes.
His ring digs into my flesh. I open my eyes.
I’m by a river, a shimmering sheet
of green marble. Red ants crawl up
an oak tree’s flaking bark. My hands
are cold mud. I follow the tall grass
by the riverbank, the song. My Orisha,
Oshun in gold bracelets and earrings, scrubs
her yellow dress in the river. I wave, Hey!
She keeps singing. The dress turns the river
gold and there’s my father surfacing.
He holds a white and green drum. I watch him
climb out of the water, drip toward Oshun.
They embrace. My father beats his drum.
With shining hands, she signs: Welcome.
My father beats his drum.
He uses white space and the dense coil of language to deliver the experience of what it means to be deaf. Excellent.
January 11, 2022
there is no telling what language is within the body
was first introduced to antrobus (the!) in a workshop with jen hofer (the!)*. it was a recording of Dear Hearing World with a delivery that has stuck with me since,, impressions impressions impressions. i read this in one breathe last night and it allowed me to be very outside myself for a while,, or maybe maybe very deep within. antrobus' voice is distinct and rising, become a favored source of (in)audibility. i will be following in life to come :,')
some glimmers on the way out:
I have left earth in search of an audible God .
if you must, / do your gentle magic, / but make me unafraid / of what is /// disappearing .
*in small moments i do miss the quiet of spring 2021
also also really loved happy birthday moon 3
was first introduced to antrobus (the!) in a workshop with jen hofer (the!)*. it was a recording of Dear Hearing World with a delivery that has stuck with me since,, impressions impressions impressions. i read this in one breathe last night and it allowed me to be very outside myself for a while,, or maybe maybe very deep within. antrobus' voice is distinct and rising, become a favored source of (in)audibility. i will be following in life to come :,')
some glimmers on the way out:
I have left earth in search of an audible God .
if you must, / do your gentle magic, / but make me unafraid / of what is /// disappearing .
*in small moments i do miss the quiet of spring 2021
also also really loved happy birthday moon 3
July 27, 2020
I'm never sure how to review poetry which I enjoy, because my main thoughts about poetry I love are incoherent. To avoid trying to articulate myself, this collection is very good.
My fave poems in the collection are "Echo", "The Perseverance", "Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris", "Miami" and "Happy Birthday Moon."
My fave poems in the collection are "Echo", "The Perseverance", "Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris", "Miami" and "Happy Birthday Moon."
June 26, 2021
This was just completely exceptional. Antrobus touches on so many topics with such sensitivity and freshness in this slim volume, from deafness to masculinity to language to communication to family to ethnicity. It works as a collection in the best possible way; each individual poem would be outstanding in isolation, but together they form a sort of harmony that is just fantastic. I cannot recommend this collection highly enough, utterly brilliant.
February 4, 2023
Just BEAUTIFUL. The poet beautifully conveyed to both D/deaf and hearing readers how a Deaf person moves through the world. I was particularly taken by the descriptions of how a D/deaf Jamaican would relate to members of their family. Being of Jamaican descent, I can understand completely how the mother in the poem "Samantha" would assume that her child was somehow cursed by the devil with deafness. Also, the poet's complicated but ultimately loving relationship with his father? Hauntingly but wonderfully described. So so so GOOD.
January 5, 2021
Incredible stuff - it is rare that I speed through a book of poetry like I did with this collection. Such raw and visceral writing yet so beautifully cohesive - I’m so excited to read more of Antrobus’ work
April 2, 2021
"Nowadays, instead of violence, / I write until everything goes / quiet. No one can tell me / anything about this radiance."
💫
Raymond The Antrobus Perseverance is a collection of poems that vibrate and reverberate through the pages and into the palms. The language of the body weaves through the language of grief, of loss, of identity and out pours a torrent of colors the likes which those who "benefit from audio supremacy" are often unable/unwilling or unlikely to see. This collection's critique of prejudice is as captivating in its words as in its silences.
💫
Raymond The Antrobus Perseverance is a collection of poems that vibrate and reverberate through the pages and into the palms. The language of the body weaves through the language of grief, of loss, of identity and out pours a torrent of colors the likes which those who "benefit from audio supremacy" are often unable/unwilling or unlikely to see. This collection's critique of prejudice is as captivating in its words as in its silences.
February 18, 2022
I've never really been particularly attracted to poetry because I find it quite difficult to grasp most of the times and so, difficult to understand and like. Words have always been out of reach, and reading this collection has reinforced this idea. Reading it taught me something about me that is so obvious that I never ever fully realised it: words don't ring a bell at all — and I genuinely don't give a fuck about enjambements and dramatic techniques and urgh —, but drawings and physical structures do. Antrobus brilliantly managed to harmoniously incorporate both of them into his poems to create the better and most comfortable and familiar experience for deaf people — him and me.
June 17, 2020
explores the d/Deaf experience with such clarity and high-definition that even the absences and white spaces become words with presence in themselves
July 26, 2020
Incredibile e meraviglioso.
Incroyable et merveilleux.
Asombroso y maravilloso.
Incroyable et merveilleux.
Asombroso y maravilloso.
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