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Quiet: Poems
A black British poet making her thrilling American debut explores the importance of “quiet” in producing forms of community, resistance, and love.
“Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; [they] perfectly embody the political through the personal.”—Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
How does one encounter meaning amid so many kinds of noise? What is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist—and what liberating potential might it hold? These poems dwell on ideas of black interiority, intimacy, and selfhood, and they celebrate as fiercely as they mourn. With a metaphysical edge and a formal restlessness attuned to both the sonics and the inadequacies of language, Quiet navigates the tension between the impulse to guard one’s inner life and the knowledge that, as Audre Lorde writes, "your silence will not protect you."
“Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; [they] perfectly embody the political through the personal.”—Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
How does one encounter meaning amid so many kinds of noise? What is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist—and what liberating potential might it hold? These poems dwell on ideas of black interiority, intimacy, and selfhood, and they celebrate as fiercely as they mourn. With a metaphysical edge and a formal restlessness attuned to both the sonics and the inadequacies of language, Quiet navigates the tension between the impulse to guard one’s inner life and the knowledge that, as Audre Lorde writes, "your silence will not protect you."
112 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2022
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2013 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
March 17, 2023
Protest doesn't have to be loud; sometimes it can even be silent. In her debut, Bulley, a British-born Ghanaian poet, makes that especially clear with the pair "[ ] noise" (= white noise, inescapable) and "black noise" (an erasure poem). She models how language might be decolonized (particularly in "revision") and how Black femininity might be reimagined ("fabula"). Along with her acknowledged debts to Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Mary Oliver et al., I spotted echoes of Kei Miller (her "there is dark that moves" ~ his "there is an anger that moves") and Toni Morrison ("Quiet as it's kept" - the first line of The Bluest Eye).
The collection is bold but never heavy-handed, and the seriousness of its topics (also including an early miscarriage) is lightened by poems about cats and snails. My two favourites were "not quiet as in quiet but," which juxtaposes peacefulness and the comfortable life with the perils of not speaking out about injustice; and "Epigenetic," about generations of traumatized bodies ("if your pain is alive in me / so too must be your joy."). I'm expecting this one to win the Folio poetry category, and possibly the overall prize.
The collection is bold but never heavy-handed, and the seriousness of its topics (also including an early miscarriage) is lightened by poems about cats and snails. My two favourites were "not quiet as in quiet but," which juxtaposes peacefulness and the comfortable life with the perils of not speaking out about injustice; and "Epigenetic," about generations of traumatized bodies ("if your pain is alive in me / so too must be your joy."). I'm expecting this one to win the Folio poetry category, and possibly the overall prize.
March 28, 2023
Bulley is smart and thoughtful. I really enjoyed a handful of these poems, many went over my head. A lot of diversity in style and type of poem.
Read
June 24, 2022A tract of disruption Noise & Black Noise one to take in sips. I have love for a lot of the experiments here (this is EXPERIMENTAL in every case) it tears forms about I have appreciation for VAB’s restlessness there. Especially in favour of the black mirror and the black fish
August 31, 2025
The space in between the words, things left unsaid, the words that have been crossed out and re-written. Quiet is a central theme to this poetry collection.
Sometimes it’s an aggressive, enforced silence and sometimes it is a calm quiet. Poems also touch on ideas of colonial history, the female body and love
Sometimes it’s an aggressive, enforced silence and sometimes it is a calm quiet. Poems also touch on ideas of colonial history, the female body and love
December 7, 2022
50th book of the year! I really enjoyed this collection of poems on black womanhood and invisibility. The writer uses experimental forms to bring her work to life. She interrogates the white gaze and reflects on perspectives of Black Britishness. Some I liked more than others but overall I really enjoyed the themes and poetics. I also appreciated the notes and further reading tips at the end.
August 30, 2022
I forget how much I miss being a poetry girlie until I pick up a fantastic volume like this. (It makes me want to get my shit together and start writing again) Pandemic Vs Black Folk was a particular highlight.
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December 31, 2023I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. I found it fresh and interesting in format, some poems felt quite essay-like which I enjoyed, but as a whole, it didn't stand out for me
January 5, 2023
I listened to this collection on audiobook via Scribd and was hypnotised by Bulley's soothing voice. I listened on 1x speed which I rarely do but I wanted to savour the words. Themes of race are explored with a nuance and vulnerability which added something new to a much-explored topic. I was surprised at how much I loved the poem 'White Noise' which although full of repetition made a lasting impression. I will look out with interest for what Bulley writes in future.
September 17, 2023
protest can be quiet. a revolution of the mind.
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December 28, 2024After being impressed by Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s reading in Sibiu at the Z9 festival, I had to read her book “Quiet”, which I loved, just like I loved hearing her read, the echo of her voice guiding the sound inside my head.
It’s a book brimming with a hidden, dark power, a soft but constant resistance to what “empire” and colonialism mean (which you can gather from the very first poem, the Declaration). You can “check if you want to / but you won’t find any / lyric shame here.”, as Bulley makes space in between her verses for all Black people “at the table”. Whether she deals with lost things, history, young Black girls and boys, British politics, police violence, women’s freedoms, ancestors or child-bearing, she does so masterfully, writing poems that call back to you - for a second, a third, a forth read. I loved the poems dedicated to toby the cat (“though he leaps at what may appear to us as nothing, be not fooled, for verily he catches it”), the one to “The Ultra-Black Fish”, and the one to the snail - all proof of a kind, attentive eye looking upon non-human animals (sometimes as metaphors, but not only).
“if your pain is alive in me / so too must be your joy”
August 19, 2023
I'll write a proper review of this later today. It is late. I'll just say, for the moment, just in case I forget that this is an excellent collection that works with both language and layout to create an interesting poetry collection that manages to convey the stories, about the modern black experience, particularly of black women.
It is political, as everything is political. Only people with relatively easy lives can pretend that they are untouched by politics.
But as I said more later today. When I've thought about it some more and had time to re-read my underlining and notes.
It is political, as everything is political. Only people with relatively easy lives can pretend that they are untouched by politics.
But as I said more later today. When I've thought about it some more and had time to re-read my underlining and notes.
January 8, 2023
A debut with compelling poems that struck me hard like “revision i. consider”, “not quiet as in quiet but”, “How Not to Disappear”, “Death is Everywhere & Not Here”. I’m positive different poems will hit differently for people but I’m certain there will be poems here that will leave an imprint in your mind.
March 7, 2024
A beautiful and insightful poetry collection
April 6, 2023
My new favorite poetry collection 💛
February 7, 2024
Beautiful beautiful beautiful. “There You Are” is my new favorite poem.
April 18, 2025
Obsessed, obsessed, obsessed.
June 6, 2024
It's probably a me thing because i can't remember anything that tugged my heart
September 30, 2023
a rich and pensive take on staying afloat and making space for yourself as a black woman in Times Like These. wonderful.
March 15, 2023
“This Poem” is mind blowing!
July 31, 2023
READING VLOG
An incredibly strong collection of poems centering around the black body and its stance in the world, its posture. The way it holds itself up beyond the many ways it is brought down.
Bulley here focuses on sound. Rhythm. Through the noise, diagetic and non-diagetic, she explores the vacuum in which meanings are contained. How those meanings can explode and create structures, forms. Even give nothingness a sound. She can even give silence a rounded feeling, a soul.
"𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢-
𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨."
It's through repeated themes of this silence, the white noise of it, is she able to create a symphony of feelings that involve the beauty of the black experience.
"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵." - Zora Neale Hurston.
"𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭, 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵. 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘦." - Toni Morrison
Then, Bulley not only understands music. No, she doesn't just listen to it, she feels it. She feels it from her bones, lets it course through her until she is music herself.
An incredibly strong collection of poems centering around the black body and its stance in the world, its posture. The way it holds itself up beyond the many ways it is brought down.
Bulley here focuses on sound. Rhythm. Through the noise, diagetic and non-diagetic, she explores the vacuum in which meanings are contained. How those meanings can explode and create structures, forms. Even give nothingness a sound. She can even give silence a rounded feeling, a soul.
"𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢-
𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨."
It's through repeated themes of this silence, the white noise of it, is she able to create a symphony of feelings that involve the beauty of the black experience.
"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘨𝘶𝘭𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵." - Zora Neale Hurston.
"𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭, 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵. 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺, 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘦." - Toni Morrison
Then, Bulley not only understands music. No, she doesn't just listen to it, she feels it. She feels it from her bones, lets it course through her until she is music herself.
June 30, 2023
Synonyms of Quiet; boiling herbs on a cold day; watching a snail in its new, translucent shell. These gentle moments find themselves in a spare drawer, the same one with breadbag twist ties and leftover ketchup packets and an old matchbox no one knows the origin of. These few moments could have filled a mansion, could have multiplied, spreading their feathery seeds on the wind, covering the countryside in little yellow suns...
Instead even the weeds got choked out, like the parable Jesus told. Cliche, a scorching sun, bore down on the new sprouts, and a trinity of inhospitable rocks finished them off: typical contemporary politics, typical contemporary poetics, and typical contemporary philosophy. Those which didn't get crushed and burned were stretched out on the rack. Too often, a single metaphor is forced to pontificate politically or else suffer a worse fate: annihilation. For Bulley and many of us digital kleptomaniacs, we fear losing anything which come to our fingertips; sadly, good writing can only come from loss, from losing most of a poem, most of a novel, paring away the fat and excess.
And this book crescendoed. It fucking crescendoed. A book called "Quiet." Bulley should have started off loudly, turning down the volume slowly until we enter a quiet sanctum. Or perhaps it could have been bookended with loudness, to show us the quiet room, but remind us that we must live in the world, that we shouldn't be hermits seeking quiet as an end in itself. Or something. Anything other than what we got, which was a typical, slow buildup to a loud crescendo at the end.
This did feel like a young artist, like a self-portrait. It was still figuring itself out, still stretching its legs and arms, trying out random things to see what sticks. But that's a rough draft, not a final draft. The number of thought-terminating-cliches (which is itself a thought-terminating-cliche) was surprising, since almost none of them were twisted, were toyed with. They just hung out like dirty, wet laundry, and they stunk up the whole neighborhood. Atop this hanging dirty laundry were titles, all of which felt quite workshopped (unlike the poems), and didn't seem to match much of anything. It's as if these plaques were engraved far before the rest of the body of work, and some hasty attempts were made to fulfill those promises.
But even e. e. cummings would be embarrassed. Visual experimentation is dead. Time to return to interesting diction, word choice, alliteration, assonance, internal rhyming, accentual verse, really pretty much any limitation. Writing without limitation creates this saggy, drooping, retch-inducing, forgettable poetry. Only a couple lines begrudgingly impressed me in their sonic quality. The rest--especially the pseudo-philosophical prose near the end--lagged behind what poetry should be, especially poetry so highly praised. Perhaps my words could have landed more softly, blown a cool breeze to dry off the dirty laundry, but with something so highly esteemed, a scorching eye must be brought to bear. And scorch it did.
All the british and islamic details peppered on top felt just like that: unnecessary flecks of extra flavor, something burnt and brushed off by the steak knife, before you eat the real meal. Ultimately, there was no voice, nothing to hold onto, no handholds, no footrests, nothing. For some reason, people tend to blur "blackness" with "nothingness:" a lack, a crater, something negated. Instead of creating, instead of making positive statements, everything mopes around in this realm of the dead, on the shore of the river styx, sad shades plodding along the shore because no one vouchsafed their fare. Everything is lived in the past, with a pointed finger, boney, worn down to the white bone with pointing, with accusation. It's exhausting. It must be exhausting. It must drive to frenzy. In other words, it is the opposite of quiet. It is the shrieking of damned souls, of the refusal to break out of a generational downward spiral. The quieter moments (the litany, the herb pot, the shell) threatened to radically shatter that expectation, that trend, that inescapable gravity. But by the end, everything was back to hell, back to the typical, trodden path, the one choked with thorns. And you wonder why you bleed? I'm running low on pity for such an aesthetic, just as those who self-flagellate in this bramble are running low on blood. I'll keep going on another path. You're free to join me, if you'd like. But suit yourself.
Instead even the weeds got choked out, like the parable Jesus told. Cliche, a scorching sun, bore down on the new sprouts, and a trinity of inhospitable rocks finished them off: typical contemporary politics, typical contemporary poetics, and typical contemporary philosophy. Those which didn't get crushed and burned were stretched out on the rack. Too often, a single metaphor is forced to pontificate politically or else suffer a worse fate: annihilation. For Bulley and many of us digital kleptomaniacs, we fear losing anything which come to our fingertips; sadly, good writing can only come from loss, from losing most of a poem, most of a novel, paring away the fat and excess.
And this book crescendoed. It fucking crescendoed. A book called "Quiet." Bulley should have started off loudly, turning down the volume slowly until we enter a quiet sanctum. Or perhaps it could have been bookended with loudness, to show us the quiet room, but remind us that we must live in the world, that we shouldn't be hermits seeking quiet as an end in itself. Or something. Anything other than what we got, which was a typical, slow buildup to a loud crescendo at the end.
This did feel like a young artist, like a self-portrait. It was still figuring itself out, still stretching its legs and arms, trying out random things to see what sticks. But that's a rough draft, not a final draft. The number of thought-terminating-cliches (which is itself a thought-terminating-cliche) was surprising, since almost none of them were twisted, were toyed with. They just hung out like dirty, wet laundry, and they stunk up the whole neighborhood. Atop this hanging dirty laundry were titles, all of which felt quite workshopped (unlike the poems), and didn't seem to match much of anything. It's as if these plaques were engraved far before the rest of the body of work, and some hasty attempts were made to fulfill those promises.
But even e. e. cummings would be embarrassed. Visual experimentation is dead. Time to return to interesting diction, word choice, alliteration, assonance, internal rhyming, accentual verse, really pretty much any limitation. Writing without limitation creates this saggy, drooping, retch-inducing, forgettable poetry. Only a couple lines begrudgingly impressed me in their sonic quality. The rest--especially the pseudo-philosophical prose near the end--lagged behind what poetry should be, especially poetry so highly praised. Perhaps my words could have landed more softly, blown a cool breeze to dry off the dirty laundry, but with something so highly esteemed, a scorching eye must be brought to bear. And scorch it did.
All the british and islamic details peppered on top felt just like that: unnecessary flecks of extra flavor, something burnt and brushed off by the steak knife, before you eat the real meal. Ultimately, there was no voice, nothing to hold onto, no handholds, no footrests, nothing. For some reason, people tend to blur "blackness" with "nothingness:" a lack, a crater, something negated. Instead of creating, instead of making positive statements, everything mopes around in this realm of the dead, on the shore of the river styx, sad shades plodding along the shore because no one vouchsafed their fare. Everything is lived in the past, with a pointed finger, boney, worn down to the white bone with pointing, with accusation. It's exhausting. It must be exhausting. It must drive to frenzy. In other words, it is the opposite of quiet. It is the shrieking of damned souls, of the refusal to break out of a generational downward spiral. The quieter moments (the litany, the herb pot, the shell) threatened to radically shatter that expectation, that trend, that inescapable gravity. But by the end, everything was back to hell, back to the typical, trodden path, the one choked with thorns. And you wonder why you bleed? I'm running low on pity for such an aesthetic, just as those who self-flagellate in this bramble are running low on blood. I'll keep going on another path. You're free to join me, if you'd like. But suit yourself.
April 21, 2023
Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s collection of poems, QUIET, explores the inherent tension of Black interiority, the blurred lines between keeping private and keeping silent. There is an inner dignity, what Kevin Quashie calls the “aesthetic of quiet”—a sort of freedom kept to self that maintains humanity and dignity, an interior Zora Neale Hurston says is “untouched by words” with feelings “untouched by thought.” Colonialism, racism, and all the -isms weave their threads through the interior and the exterior. What is quietude among these violences, these injustices, this exhaustion?
Bulley shows us the full range of what is “quiet.” There is the quiet that is “too quiet,” what seems to be safe, even when this safety is an illusion (from “not quiet as in quiet but”). And even when a mouth opens to speak, how to speak when there seems to never be the quiet for the poet to do so, in the constant noise reminding them that they are never alone (and thus safe)? And even when a mouth opens to speak, when a pen sets down to write, how to not be overshadowed by voices speaking about them without them, silencing them, forever haunting them (from “This poem”)? This is a dangerous quiet.
But when the world gives space, when the poet moves to take space, there is power in quiet. Quiet can be breathing, because “We must stay alive / to our place in the family / of green & breathing things / that use even our sighs / to make sweetness from light” (from “Air”). It is the breath taken between words like speaking, air taken in to “save my breath for singing” (from “Declaration”). And quiet can be loud, where “word begets world,” as it is in the poem “night garden” where stories are planted as seeds, regenerated as hope and love and life down to the future generations.
Bulley writes in a poem: “can you / hear me? can you / see me / now?” Yes, yes. We hear you. We see you. We feel the sound waves of these words through our bodies.
[Thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy]
Bulley shows us the full range of what is “quiet.” There is the quiet that is “too quiet,” what seems to be safe, even when this safety is an illusion (from “not quiet as in quiet but”). And even when a mouth opens to speak, how to speak when there seems to never be the quiet for the poet to do so, in the constant noise reminding them that they are never alone (and thus safe)? And even when a mouth opens to speak, when a pen sets down to write, how to not be overshadowed by voices speaking about them without them, silencing them, forever haunting them (from “This poem”)? This is a dangerous quiet.
But when the world gives space, when the poet moves to take space, there is power in quiet. Quiet can be breathing, because “We must stay alive / to our place in the family / of green & breathing things / that use even our sighs / to make sweetness from light” (from “Air”). It is the breath taken between words like speaking, air taken in to “save my breath for singing” (from “Declaration”). And quiet can be loud, where “word begets world,” as it is in the poem “night garden” where stories are planted as seeds, regenerated as hope and love and life down to the future generations.
Bulley writes in a poem: “can you / hear me? can you / see me / now?” Yes, yes. We hear you. We see you. We feel the sound waves of these words through our bodies.
[Thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy]
December 29, 2023
Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian writer, poet, and filmmaker. This is her debut poetry book and
WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO POETRY PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE.
In other words, it was at times more erudite than I could grasp, yet I felt the power of it. Most of all, I was struck by the quiet (can't imagine a better title for this book). One needn’t rant and rave to make a point or to find that position of inner strength and know when to try to explain the truth to those who won’t get it anyway and when to quietly hold your own truth close to your heart. There was a lot of white space on these pages, some shapes and scattered text to make some sort of point whether I followed it or not, but I relished how even the forms of the poems felt calming, gave the words room to breathe.
Here are a few moments I especially enjoyed. In “toby,” a poem about her cat, she clearly admires
the animal, but I also get the feeling he is standing in as a metaphor for more than cat:
It begins,
“your ears move
even when you are asleep:
you sleep with two eyes open.
he: small matador. he: sometimes cerebral. aspirational puma….
though he leaps at what may appear to us as nothing, be not fooled, for verily he
catches it….”
In “Girls in Arpeggio, 2. Forbearance,” Bulley tells us,
“There is a toll charged
for choosing to be the exotic one.
The problem has something to do
with your acceptance of a cage
made from laundered gold….”
In “date with no entry,” I was impressed that Bulley asked questions rather than giving answers, for example:
“…when you’ve done enough, are you be the last to know?...
when you’ve had enough, will you be the last to know?
is it love that you’re seeking or permission?
what will you choose when you can’t have both?...”
As the blurb inside the cover says, "This is her debut collection, but she arrives fully formed."
WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO POETRY PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE.
In other words, it was at times more erudite than I could grasp, yet I felt the power of it. Most of all, I was struck by the quiet (can't imagine a better title for this book). One needn’t rant and rave to make a point or to find that position of inner strength and know when to try to explain the truth to those who won’t get it anyway and when to quietly hold your own truth close to your heart. There was a lot of white space on these pages, some shapes and scattered text to make some sort of point whether I followed it or not, but I relished how even the forms of the poems felt calming, gave the words room to breathe.
Here are a few moments I especially enjoyed. In “toby,” a poem about her cat, she clearly admires
the animal, but I also get the feeling he is standing in as a metaphor for more than cat:
It begins,
“your ears move
even when you are asleep:
you sleep with two eyes open.
he: small matador. he: sometimes cerebral. aspirational puma….
though he leaps at what may appear to us as nothing, be not fooled, for verily he
catches it….”
In “Girls in Arpeggio, 2. Forbearance,” Bulley tells us,
“There is a toll charged
for choosing to be the exotic one.
The problem has something to do
with your acceptance of a cage
made from laundered gold….”
In “date with no entry,” I was impressed that Bulley asked questions rather than giving answers, for example:
“…when you’ve done enough, are you be the last to know?...
when you’ve had enough, will you be the last to know?
is it love that you’re seeking or permission?
what will you choose when you can’t have both?...”
As the blurb inside the cover says, "This is her debut collection, but she arrives fully formed."
February 14, 2023
The first poem in Quiet is fierce.
Declaration
if sickness begins in the gut, if
I live in the belly of the beast, if
here at the heart of empire–
if careful in the house of the host, if
quiet at the hearth of the host, if
here at the home of empire–
if I live in the belly of the beast,
let me beget sickness in its gut.
British poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley writes about being a black woman. She writes about the words of colonialism, the fear of walking home when police dismiss the missing who are black. She writes of the smiling girls on relaxer kits, “poster girls for the effacement of themselves”. About black girls embracing their beauty. “Pandemic vs Black Folk” reflects on the pandemic, Brexit, and the reality that social distancing isn’t new for her: “In this skin, sis, I’m a virus too.”
There are poems of love and friendship. I love the poem “Stephanie;” walking by a house where a friend used to live, she recalls how they would walk to the park at night: “What is a friend/but someone to sit with/on the swings/out in the darkness.”
In “This Poem,” she says what so many poets know: the poem you meant to write is superseded by the poem that demands to be written.
There is a lyricism to the poems, a propulsion of language. They demanded to be read out loud.
I was struck by the experimental form of the poems, words crossed out, entire lines blackened with only a few words on each line readable, the repeated words, lines dense with words with inserted brackets.
The author includes a Further Reading list of books including The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture by Kevin Quashie which influenced her work.
Thanks to A. A. Knopf for a free book.
Declaration
if sickness begins in the gut, if
I live in the belly of the beast, if
here at the heart of empire–
if careful in the house of the host, if
quiet at the hearth of the host, if
here at the home of empire–
if I live in the belly of the beast,
let me beget sickness in its gut.
British poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley writes about being a black woman. She writes about the words of colonialism, the fear of walking home when police dismiss the missing who are black. She writes of the smiling girls on relaxer kits, “poster girls for the effacement of themselves”. About black girls embracing their beauty. “Pandemic vs Black Folk” reflects on the pandemic, Brexit, and the reality that social distancing isn’t new for her: “In this skin, sis, I’m a virus too.”
There are poems of love and friendship. I love the poem “Stephanie;” walking by a house where a friend used to live, she recalls how they would walk to the park at night: “What is a friend/but someone to sit with/on the swings/out in the darkness.”
In “This Poem,” she says what so many poets know: the poem you meant to write is superseded by the poem that demands to be written.
There is a lyricism to the poems, a propulsion of language. They demanded to be read out loud.
I was struck by the experimental form of the poems, words crossed out, entire lines blackened with only a few words on each line readable, the repeated words, lines dense with words with inserted brackets.
The author includes a Further Reading list of books including The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture by Kevin Quashie which influenced her work.
Thanks to A. A. Knopf for a free book.
December 9, 2023
The Ultra-Black Fish
Two hundred metres down, the light stops.
Many deep-sea creatures alive at this level
of the ocean have developed the ability to create
light for themselves. This is known as bioluminescence.
Others, on the contrary, contribute to the darkness
by adding themselves to it. Ultra-black fish are
one example, & in 2020 sixteen varieties of these were
discovered captured. The level of pigment in their
skin was so high that it was found to absorb 99.956%
of the light that touched it. Karen, a marine biologist,
made the discovery came across them by accident.
Instead of hauling up the deep-sea crabs she had been
searching for, her net produced a fang-toothed fish that
wouldn't show up in a photograph. Held, later, in a tank
under two strobe lights, the fish became a living black hole,
with no discernable features beyond the opacity of its
silhouette. As though it had cut itself out of the image & left.
Scientists believe that the fish developed their invisibility
to aid them in escaping their predators. Another theory
suggests that the obscurity of ultra-black fish enables them
to more successfully catch their prey. It is likely that both
ideas are true. Commentatorson their discovery have also
speculated that the chemical structure of the pigment could
serve
the development of military & defence technologies.
Nothing was said, however, about how ultra-black fish find
& enter into relations with each other. Nonetheless, their
existence
alone is evidence that, invisible as they may be to others, they are by no means strangers to themselves. (p. 67-68)
Two hundred metres down, the light stops.
Many deep-sea creatures alive at this level
of the ocean have developed the ability to create
light for themselves. This is known as bioluminescence.
Others, on the contrary, contribute to the darkness
by adding themselves to it. Ultra-black fish are
one example, & in 2020 sixteen varieties of these were
skin was so high that it was found to absorb 99.956%
of the light that touched it. Karen, a marine biologist,
Instead of hauling up the deep-sea crabs she had been
searching for, her net produced a fang-toothed fish that
wouldn't show up in a photograph. Held, later, in a tank
under two strobe lights, the fish became a living black hole,
with no discernable features beyond the opacity of its
silhouette. As though it had cut itself out of the image & left.
Scientists believe that the fish developed their invisibility
to aid them in escaping their predators. Another theory
suggests that the obscurity of ultra-black fish enables them
to more successfully catch their prey. It is likely that both
ideas are true. Commentators
speculated that the chemical structure of the pigment could
serve
the development of military & defence technologies.
Nothing was said, however, about how ultra-black fish find
& enter into relations with each other. Nonetheless, their
existence
alone is evidence that, invisible as they may be to others, they are by no means strangers to themselves. (p. 67-68)
March 1, 2023
'Nomad of no fixed address, praise
your paradox, your calcium elasticity.
You who wander are not lost.
Home is wherever you are right now.
Everywhere you go is where you live.'
(p63, from ‘Of the Snail & its Loveliness’)
**
'oh my diablo, diablo pequeno, oh night singer, oh most true & high falsetto, oh starving four-winged mother, oh lone she wolf, oh once nymph, oh primordial stagnation, oh explorador, oh lover of house reds, oh witching hour jinn, oh erratic, oh evasive, oh god no & now unmistakeable, oh warm & international, oh unlikely but not impossible death deliveroo, oh most consistent, oh highly dependent, oh addict, oh seeker of beautiful veins, oh collector of DNA, oh genome stealer, oh cartographer of blood, oh rogue scientist, oh government pawn, oh infiltrator, oh infidel, oh drone, oh promised one, oh midnight kiss, oh lovebite perfectly circular & raised a little, oh long-nailed orgasmic itch, oh ooze, oh souvenir, oh scar, oh skin constellation, oh BioOil boomer, oh money maker, oh leg slapper, oh clap & check both hands, oh newspaper, oh towel, oh book or whatever’s closer, oh dream breaker, oh organic alarm, oh call to arms, oh supplicant, oh rogue, oh swift invasion, oh awful tenant, oh short-term lease, oh tiny white man with bugle to scale, oh poacher, oh crosshair, oh ear worm, oh fish hook tonight I am bait & I tried but will not win! oh coloniser, tonight I am the island you’ll name with your mouth as you must, as you must, make it quick & noiseless just take my shit & go'
(p51, 'Ode')
your paradox, your calcium elasticity.
You who wander are not lost.
Home is wherever you are right now.
Everywhere you go is where you live.'
(p63, from ‘Of the Snail & its Loveliness’)
**
'oh my diablo, diablo pequeno, oh night singer, oh most true & high falsetto, oh starving four-winged mother, oh lone she wolf, oh once nymph, oh primordial stagnation, oh explorador, oh lover of house reds, oh witching hour jinn, oh erratic, oh evasive, oh god no & now unmistakeable, oh warm & international, oh unlikely but not impossible death deliveroo, oh most consistent, oh highly dependent, oh addict, oh seeker of beautiful veins, oh collector of DNA, oh genome stealer, oh cartographer of blood, oh rogue scientist, oh government pawn, oh infiltrator, oh infidel, oh drone, oh promised one, oh midnight kiss, oh lovebite perfectly circular & raised a little, oh long-nailed orgasmic itch, oh ooze, oh souvenir, oh scar, oh skin constellation, oh BioOil boomer, oh money maker, oh leg slapper, oh clap & check both hands, oh newspaper, oh towel, oh book or whatever’s closer, oh dream breaker, oh organic alarm, oh call to arms, oh supplicant, oh rogue, oh swift invasion, oh awful tenant, oh short-term lease, oh tiny white man with bugle to scale, oh poacher, oh crosshair, oh ear worm, oh fish hook tonight I am bait & I tried but will not win! oh coloniser, tonight I am the island you’ll name with your mouth as you must, as you must, make it quick & noiseless just take my shit & go'
(p51, 'Ode')
August 18, 2023
Je ne peux plus vivre sans poésie. 🤍
girl
hair coming down past your breasts like con-fetti. your straighter teeth, your stripped upper lip (recoiling still), your clean, dark complexion. lean legs, or the gap between them. the grasp of your jeans at you like a lover that you'd like to leave, exposing the gap. the sign between your feet pointing upwards, tear here. sun, sea, sand, shea butter, you are smoother skin, polished nails, dark eyes: seeing-almonds. your voice, your vocal chords, stroked by secondhand smoke. your dozy tongue, stacking it over words you really should know how to pronounce by now. & feet, lithe, slim, no peeling, arches secure as scaffolds. oiled joints, humming the silence of youth. limbs fighting baby jihads against lipids; still winning. your heart still kicking it in time, red metronome, your shunning of the night; a propensity for wakeful-ness, for pen against paper - a dance of sorts - because what is death to you?
(break)
my sweet girl.
(break)
will you write to me, years from today, when you no longer are what you are now? i'd like to know what you'll be.
(break)
call me when you find out.
i'll be here.
18
(break)
4. Realpolitik
Somewhere beyond the last of the pencil
lines tattooed
onto the doorframes of their kitchens, their
only nations, these girls, cacao-cored & peppercorn pin-curled, decided to call themselves beautiful.
Not chocolate or caramel.
Not coconut or
tan.
Not Bounty,
not Hovis best-of-both or burnt wholegrain toast. Not buff nor carbon-cum-diamond blick. Not lighty, not hair enough to hang
from. Not video girl.
Not
side-chick. Not thick, not booty or apple-bottom.
Not deputation any
longer, not another word not vice not
hereafter any cover-teacher or stand-in nor prefix;
no sign nor understudy no other for beauty anymore.
For these girls it was a violent act.
Afterwards, they slept better.
There You Are
There you are this cold day
boiling the water on the stove pouring the herbs into the pot hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table saying please, please, to nobody else here in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do, in case they help, these things you do which, although you haven't said it yet, say that you want to live.
six weeks
what if I gave you a name, & it made remembering easier. I am a person who tries to keep things. I am a girl, also, who forgets she is a woman nowadays, with a body that does womanly things, at times undoes them, unfastens the sound wuu-man like a cord from around the neck.
date with no entry
every way to deep it, but no way to swim.
natally wounded comes to mind.
it had a nice ring to it; it left the mouth well. when you've done enough, are you the last to
know?
sometimes the whole operating system is
faulty.
what are the subscriptions left to cancel?
junk mail aplenty; no click here to unsubscribe.
no idea who gave the devil your details. it's not you this time, it's the planets that are
mad.
you're okay, really, you just caught a ghost.
what's yours is yours. what's theirs is yours
too. (a sadness so heavy.)
a sadness so heavy.
sticky & gumlike, colour-fast.
ignore & it will stay forever, loyal to you.
act too soon & you'll seal it in for good.
scrubbing your bedsheets in the bathroom in
shame.
sweetheart, sweetheart,
when you've had enough, will you be the last
to know?
is it love that you're seeking, or permission? what will you choose when you can't have
both?
is it true, is it useful: a sadness so heavy.
a sorrow like this needs washing on its own
terms.
the answer: not always hot water.
turn on both taps, & cup your hands under.
like in prayer, but open.
not right or wrong, but left & right: both you.
wash your loss at the body's own tempera-
ture.
observe how, like blood, now it runs.
« …the light is coming in through the glass, the sill is warm with its touch, & some of us are learning how to quit. there will be no business as usual if that business is not of love. there will be no business as usual if that business is not of love. there will be no business as usual today. love is our only business. forever & ever, ase. »
girl
hair coming down past your breasts like con-fetti. your straighter teeth, your stripped upper lip (recoiling still), your clean, dark complexion. lean legs, or the gap between them. the grasp of your jeans at you like a lover that you'd like to leave, exposing the gap. the sign between your feet pointing upwards, tear here. sun, sea, sand, shea butter, you are smoother skin, polished nails, dark eyes: seeing-almonds. your voice, your vocal chords, stroked by secondhand smoke. your dozy tongue, stacking it over words you really should know how to pronounce by now. & feet, lithe, slim, no peeling, arches secure as scaffolds. oiled joints, humming the silence of youth. limbs fighting baby jihads against lipids; still winning. your heart still kicking it in time, red metronome, your shunning of the night; a propensity for wakeful-ness, for pen against paper - a dance of sorts - because what is death to you?
(break)
my sweet girl.
(break)
will you write to me, years from today, when you no longer are what you are now? i'd like to know what you'll be.
(break)
call me when you find out.
i'll be here.
18
(break)
4. Realpolitik
Somewhere beyond the last of the pencil
lines tattooed
onto the doorframes of their kitchens, their
only nations, these girls, cacao-cored & peppercorn pin-curled, decided to call themselves beautiful.
Not chocolate or caramel.
Not coconut or
tan.
Not Bounty,
not Hovis best-of-both or burnt wholegrain toast. Not buff nor carbon-cum-diamond blick. Not lighty, not hair enough to hang
from. Not video girl.
Not
side-chick. Not thick, not booty or apple-bottom.
Not deputation any
longer, not another word not vice not
hereafter any cover-teacher or stand-in nor prefix;
no sign nor understudy no other for beauty anymore.
For these girls it was a violent act.
Afterwards, they slept better.
There You Are
There you are this cold day
boiling the water on the stove pouring the herbs into the pot hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table saying please, please, to nobody else here in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do, in case they help, these things you do which, although you haven't said it yet, say that you want to live.
six weeks
what if I gave you a name, & it made remembering easier. I am a person who tries to keep things. I am a girl, also, who forgets she is a woman nowadays, with a body that does womanly things, at times undoes them, unfastens the sound wuu-man like a cord from around the neck.
date with no entry
every way to deep it, but no way to swim.
natally wounded comes to mind.
it had a nice ring to it; it left the mouth well. when you've done enough, are you the last to
know?
sometimes the whole operating system is
faulty.
what are the subscriptions left to cancel?
junk mail aplenty; no click here to unsubscribe.
no idea who gave the devil your details. it's not you this time, it's the planets that are
mad.
you're okay, really, you just caught a ghost.
what's yours is yours. what's theirs is yours
too. (a sadness so heavy.)
a sadness so heavy.
sticky & gumlike, colour-fast.
ignore & it will stay forever, loyal to you.
act too soon & you'll seal it in for good.
scrubbing your bedsheets in the bathroom in
shame.
sweetheart, sweetheart,
when you've had enough, will you be the last
to know?
is it love that you're seeking, or permission? what will you choose when you can't have
both?
is it true, is it useful: a sadness so heavy.
a sorrow like this needs washing on its own
terms.
the answer: not always hot water.
turn on both taps, & cup your hands under.
like in prayer, but open.
not right or wrong, but left & right: both you.
wash your loss at the body's own tempera-
ture.
observe how, like blood, now it runs.
« …the light is coming in through the glass, the sill is warm with its touch, & some of us are learning how to quit. there will be no business as usual if that business is not of love. there will be no business as usual if that business is not of love. there will be no business as usual today. love is our only business. forever & ever, ase. »
January 14, 2025
“Death […] Is it not / you who turns overhead with no warning, declaring the night an open disco?” Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s Quiet is one of the most formally innovative and ambitious collections of poetry I’ve read in some time. In three parts, with three smaller interlude parts in between, it opens with ‘Room of Conditions & Refusals’ and the sequence ‘revision’, in which Bulley uses form to dissect language around colonialism, summed up in ‘iii. consolidate’: “in the year of our lord / 2017 / i look for my language, // still finding in it / their hairs”. In the prose poem ‘girl’, a moving and arresting poem, Bulley writes about “your heart still kicking it in time”; elsewhere, young women are shown as “too happy / to realise they were poster girls / for the effacement of themselves.” The de facto title poem, ‘not quiet as in quiet but’, is breath-taking, serving as a kind of mission statement for the whole collection. I enjoyed ‘How Not to Disappear’ and ‘About Ana’ (which considers the artist Ana Mendieta), the ingenious form of ‘[ ] noise’, and in the later section, the related poem ‘black noise’. All six poems in the shorter interlude sections are compelling and confrontational, so deeply preoccupied with language. Other favourites include the gorgeous ‘Of the Snail & its Loveliness’, and the brilliant ‘note on exiting’, with its view of revolutionary love: “there will be no business as usual if that business is not of love. there will be no business as usual today. love is our only business.”
Read
January 10, 2023Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Quiet is a collection of poems that raises the question of encountering meaning amidst many kinds of noise. The book holds the reader responsible for their choice of silence - what is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist? As Audre Lorde writes, “your silence will not protect you”. I was struck by the various themes covered in this collection. In revision, Bulley writes about the coming of the Europeans to Africa and its effects “inhabiting the land. It is not clear what their expectations were”. In not quiet as in quiet, Bulley writes “as in too quiet/ as in almost silent” expressing the complexities of silence. In six weeks and towards a black mirror the author discusses womanhood and the female body. There are several other themes like death, language, race, vulnerability, intimacy among others.
Through the book, time transcends - in one poem, the author describes the Europeans in the 1400s, in another, she describes a playground, and in another she describes watching her cat play in Portugal. The reader will find themselves analyzing their ideas critically after reading this book and questioning the was and the is.
Quiet is a collection of poems that raises the question of encountering meaning amidst many kinds of noise. The book holds the reader responsible for their choice of silence - what is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist? As Audre Lorde writes, “your silence will not protect you”. I was struck by the various themes covered in this collection. In revision, Bulley writes about the coming of the Europeans to Africa and its effects “inhabiting the land. It is not clear what their expectations were”. In not quiet as in quiet, Bulley writes “as in too quiet/ as in almost silent” expressing the complexities of silence. In six weeks and towards a black mirror the author discusses womanhood and the female body. There are several other themes like death, language, race, vulnerability, intimacy among others.
Through the book, time transcends - in one poem, the author describes the Europeans in the 1400s, in another, she describes a playground, and in another she describes watching her cat play in Portugal. The reader will find themselves analyzing their ideas critically after reading this book and questioning the was and the is.
August 12, 2022
I was so so looking forward to this after falling in love with Bulley's Pandemic Vs Black Folks reading at a poetry event. Her work from the reading stirred me so much that I wrote it down on a sign I took to a BLM protest in 2020. However, I did not find many poems in here that I liked because for a book about Black interiority there is a prevalent centring on whiteness. I do not expect whiteness to pierce into every interior, despite the sociological construction of race. Poems like 'essex playground' seemed to lack teeth, we're already aware of anti-Blackness and there was no incisive edge to it, no comment except description and so it seemed to be geared towards depiction for those outside of Black experiences. In this way, I found the supposed interiority subverted which was heavily disappointing for me. I still did enjoy Pandemic Vs Black Folks, however, images like 'birds of paradise' and 'cup spilling over' in earlier poems felt unimaginative.
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