Sonnets for Albert

by Anthony Joseph

With Sonnets for Albert, Anthony Joseph returns to the autobiographical material explored in his earlier collection Bird Head Son. In this follow-up, he weighs the impact of being the son of an absent, or mostly absent, father, Though these poems threaten to break under the weight of their emotions, they are always masterfully poised as the stylish man they depict.

Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2022

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong, powerful poetry collection.

[Ron Charles]

On Jan. 16, 2023, “Sonnets for Albert,” by Anthony Joseph, won the T.S. Eliot Prize. The annual award, worth about $31,000, honors the best poetry collection published in the U.K and Ireland.

Joseph, who was born in Trinidad and moved to Britain in the late 1980s, is a musician, writer and teacher at King’s College London.

“Sonnets for Albert” is a frank, heartbreaking reflection on the poet’s late father.

“My father wasn’t great as a dad, but I loved him, was fascinated by him,” Joseph said in an interview with the T.S. Eliot Foundation. “At its heart the book is really about loss and love. I think love is the main theme – the capacity to love, the way we can love unconditionally where a person’s humanity, their substance, is so strong it displaces their questionable aspects.” (Video: Joseph talks about his work.)

Regrettably, Joseph’s books – five poetry collections and three novels – are not published in the United States, but copies can be ordered from abroad. (Copper Canyon, Graywolf, Tin House: Won’t someone bring “Sonnets for Albert” to America?)

[Zoe Ito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intrigued by beautiful cover, I devoured this book. Trinidad-born poet and musician, Joseph reflects on memories with his absent father after he passes away. I often find myself underwhelmed by poetry books, this being an exception. Joseph’s poetry follows a musical rhythm, allowing the poems to flourish and unfold with ease. The poems are very sensory, capturing and storing memories that are rich with smells, tastes and sounds. Such a style of introspective poetry is both rare and a pleasure to read. There are too many profoundly moving sentences and passages to include in this review, thus I would recommend just reading it. I also loved the photographs that accompanied the poems, they enhanced the immersive feel to his writing allowing the reader to reflect quietly on loss, memory and place.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finish: 22.04.2024
Title: Sonnets for Albert (2022)
Genre: 53 poems  (92 pg)
Rating: A+++++++++++++++

Good News:
Absolutely stunning poetry collection....really, the best I've read this year. 53 short poems and I liked 53! score: 100% The poems combined excellent form and technique. Challenge: see if you can find the clever word play in the first 19 poems!

Good News:
These poems are short and may be deceptive in their simplicity, but deep, deep down there is so much craft. Anthony Joseph is confonting his childhood with an absent father. He flew home after years living and studying in Europe....to finally bury his father...but not his memory.

Good News:
The son wanted answers from his father that he did not find in photographs. When Mr Joseph saw his dead father: Poem: Answers are Important (pg 83) "...the half-parted mouth which kept its secrets, and offered no response, no tender farewell."

Good News:
You can read these poems as an autobiography... each poem compliments the other. After spending many hours with Anthony Joseph the line that just took my breath away about the turbulent father son relationship was: Poem: P.O.S.G H. II (Port of Spain General Hospital) (pg 77) "...He ate up all the joy."

Last  thoughts:
Anthony Joseph tells us  how 'giving up your secrets'
makes for great literature and how 'the personal is universal'.

[Rol-J Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Two adults in the home, but only one parent”- Singing Sandra: Caribbean Man. You will appreciate why I had to quote this if you read Sonnets for Albert.

This is my first cover-to-cover read of anything by Anthony Joseph and it certainly won’t be the last. I am ready to immerse myself in the full experience of his poetry and fiction. Sonnets For Albert focuses on the fractured and dysfunctional relationship Anthony Joseph had with his father Albert, yet, throughout the lines, and many pictures included in this anthology, one can still sense the love than Joseph had for his father in spite of the circumstances and challenges. You sense that there was apology and forgiveness in the unspoken sense where someone who has transgressed suddenly reappears in your life, repentant but silent. It is the love that generations of Caribbean people know. It is a legacy that has remained with us, whether we want to admit or not.

Reading Joseph’s latest offering, silently or aloud, you’d realise why he was deserving of the T.S. Elliott Prize. It is a beautifully written anthology on life, death, fatherhood, motherhood, marriage, divorce, culture, and tradition. In many ways, this work was personal. I am already declaring this my favourite poetry anthology for 2023.

[O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a review, just feelings.

I am so particular about poetry. Reading it, not writing it. I love poetry, but if it's too broad, I can't care. I write poetry to release myself from painful or beautiful moments of time, they are just for me, I know what I'm talking about, so it's okay if it's generally confusing.

These poems were so easy to fold up into, they were joys to read. Anthony Joseph gives us pieces of himself, partial memories, moments in time that are always with him, gnawing at him, they probably keep him up late at night. I think all aspiring poets should read this, I think it will help them understand how to manipulate their own pain and joys floating within them.

I loved how clear the sense of place was as well as familiar, all these places I've been and know.

His work also confirms how time, age, human experience, pain, the ups and downs are materials in the creation of beautiful art.

Edit, note to self, probably best not to meet authors you admire and just stand and ramble, while they roll their eyes and push the signed book into your arms :S

[Ted Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lyrical and confident collection of poetry discussing the loss of the poets father.

I am really unfamiliar with reading poetry. It is something I aimed to explore this year and seeing as it is September, that is going really well. Anthony Joseph's Sonnets for Albert won the TS Elliot Prize at the start of this year, so I thought it would be a good place to start. It has a lot to recommend itself, though I'm not sure if it is a good base for further exploration of the art.

The poems all concern Joseph's father and his life on Trinidad. They all follow a musical pattern, and slowly begin to take on more abstract qualities as the reader progresses. The best touchstone I have for examining this is a music album, where some poems require repeat playings before they really sink in. What's commendable is that this is an option rather than a requirement; a novice reader like myself can find just as much narrative satisfaction from going over it once as when the poems are re-read.

I enjoyed the final sets of poems a lot more than the opening ones. It is remarkable how much information Joseph can put into short structures. He paints a complete picture of his father, and conveys extremely heavy emotions in outstandingly few words. The talent and skill this takes is phenomenal, and Joseph makes it seem effortless. His musicality really is on full display here and when combined with some of the more technical literary devices, this collection really shines. Memory Ghost I has one of the most beautiful emotional punches, Stones has some excellent word play, that I delight in, and A Wound in Time is a great demonstration of all of Joseph's skill in one poem.

Upon first reading this I was not too impressed, however the more I revisit it, the better it becomes. I'm still not sure if it is the best starting point, but it is what I chose, and it is a wonderful collection of contemporary poetry.

[Callum MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Kamua Braithwaite's History of the Voice, the 'Nation Language'--the unique, African-influenced spoken language of the Caribbean-- is championed in poetry, challenging the traditional English iambic pentameter--a mainstay of the sonnet form--which, he argues, fails to capture the rhythm of the Caribbean experience. To this end, Braithwaite powerfully puts it: "the hurricane does not roar in iambic pentameter".

Iambic meter, then, and by extension, the sonnet form, must never hope to reproduce the said experience.

And yet...Anthony Joseph's 'Sonnets for Albert' makes the titular form of poetry its own. Joseph rejects such rhythmic rigidity, letting the Caribbean hurricane roar through his verse. Throughout the collection, he uses 'poem' as a verb, attempting to 'poem' the recollections of his absent father and his life in Trinidad, exhuming the secrets and mystery beneath the tumulus (the mound left behind after his burial). Although these are primarily poems of reflection, the verbal 'poem' is exemplary, since, within this sonnet sequence, remembrance is an activite search, lyrical and legendary and longing and loosely formed: a search, both elegiac and elusive, for the indefineable father figure whose myth inhabits each of these fourteen line gems.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection started as a streamed event with an improvised soundtrack - if that's the right word. It is a collection of poems about his mostly absent father whose pictures are scattered throughout the collection.

It begins with his father's death in he poem 'Breath':

"When I hear my father dead,
I flew ten hours into the sun."

And death and dying are a part of this collection. Death, family, memory and fatherhood. A couple of the poems touch on Joseph's own role as a father.

It's a fine collection. It made me think about my Dad, even though he is very different to Joseph's father. The mortality of our parents is something we all understand, but which we never really want to think about. It feels to me that this collection is, perhaps, part of Joseph's mourning. A way to deal with loss and to try and understand his own past. But perhaps I am reading too much into it.

Worth reading.

[caitluvsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sonnets For Albert is a collection by Anthony Joseph which memorialises his unconventional father. It explores the complexities of their relationship, of fatherhood, and of grief. The collection opens with ‘Breath’, a masterfully simple depiction of the first moments of grief upon Albert’s passing; and then the gruelling reality and symbolism of death in ‘Shame’ and ‘Shame II’ is confronted by the celebration of Albert’s life in ‘Billfolds’, a raw presentation of reminiscing Joseph’s father with the tone of acceptance and forgiveness that becomes an ongoing theme in Sonnets For Albert. Then, a series of poems depict happier moments and even moments of struggle in Albert’s life, centred around Joseph’s experience of them, including remembering his father as an absent figure with “that gone momentum” in “Light”; and struggling to recall these moments at all in “Jogie Road”. The collection finishes with “The Tumuli in Santa Cruz” which is a poem that describes Albert’s burial with a tone of forgiveness, a running theme throughout this collection symbolised here, through the purifying earth receiving Albert’s body. It ends with the message that the earth receives us all eventually, arguably used to justify Joseph’s forgiveness, love and acceptance of his father despite the pain caused by his absence in Joseph’s childhood. This concludes the purpose and story of the poetry collection beautifully by teaching the reader the value of forgiveness. It is certainly a very healing, but provoking read for those with disappointing fathers, absent fathers, and so on.

Anthony Joseph’s writing invokes the magic of jazz, meaning it is a whole new experience to hear this poetry read aloud and there are great clips of this on youtube. I really enjoyed these poems and resonated with some of the conflicted feelings Joseph explores. Coming away from this work, I would like to know more about the grandmother that raised Joseph as there are some clues to Joseph’s upbringing outside of the absent male influence that deserve attention too, but this is understandably not focused on in a memoir for his father. And it is an outstanding, highly emotive collection.

[Alarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only when I came to Goodreads to write my review did I see that this collection won the 2023 T.S. Eliot Prize on January 16, just about a week before I began reading it. I feel a bit guilty not giving it 5 stars. That’s what you get from an old fuddy duddy (old enough to say fuddy duddy) who is offended at calling free verse a sonnet. I know that’s a trend, but what’s next, 400 word haiku, villanelles of 5 lines? While annoyed, I didn’t actually drop a star for that. I’d give it 4.5 stars if that were allowed, it just didn’t speak to me as much as some other poetry I’ve read recently.

Now onto to the positive – I very much enjoyed the casual writing style complete with the patois of Trinidad. It fit the topic of the author's formative years there (he’s an academic and musician living in London) and makes readers feel they’re really meeting his father on scattered visits back to the island and when his father came to NYC and London. Albert loved to cook, party, and father children across the island without paying much attention to them after they arrived.

I admired Joseph’s choices of what to say and what to leave out. He kept it real. This book is his attempt to understand the father he barely knew. You feel the deep emotion that avoids leaning into the maudlin. Beautiful balance.

His parents’ marriage didn’t last long. Albert moved on to other women, other children,
before his mother showed up 2o years later to serve him divorce papers:

“I can imagine imagine them together there, but only as myth,
sitting in his unfinished house. I came to know them apart,
and I cannot bring them together in death.”
(from “A Gap in Language”)

One of my favorite poems was about Joseph’s attendance at a Writer in Residence Conference in Washington, D.C.

“We saw the Doric pillars of the Lincoln Memorial
glowing in the unclear distance, then the white gasp
of the monument. We ordered pancakes with blueberries
at Pete’s on 2nd Street, and shared our commonalities.
And what we shared, besides our blackness,
was that in our childhoods, our fathers had all been absent.”

(from “Breakfast in DC”)

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And while we waited / the myth of him grew, / till the anticipation / of his return / would fill each room.” As a lover of the sonnet sequence, I’ve been longing to read Anthony Joseph’s Sonnets for Albert for a while; his modern take on the sonnet sequence takes the intensity of the form, devoting it to grief and familial love. In the first few poems, Joseph captures the death of his father and immediate grief, before then pivoting back to his father’s past in ‘Billfolds’; as the sequence progresses, Joseph moves with slow intensity through his childhood and his relationship with his father Albert, a man with his own mythical sense of self, a man perceived differently by his several children, lovers, family. Many of the poems are concerned with what is left unsaid in death, quietly profound: “Ash falls from a cornered cigarette. Nothing is said.”; “the half-parted mouth which kept its secrets, / and offered no response, no tender farewell.”, in the appropriately titled ‘Answers Are Important’; “Then he laughed, but nothing else was said.”, in ‘Poetry’. In both ‘Sam Boucaud, Santa Cruz’ and ‘Fulton Calypso’, Joseph is especially playful with the sonnet form, and ‘A Gap in Language’ is playful with language and meaning. I was so struck by the palpable grief in ‘Tumulus I’ and ‘Tumulus II’, and all its other various, vivid forms: “Each scene is his, he steals it”; “mostly / I avoided calling him anything at all”; “You looked like my father, but something had been lost besides life.” As the sequence builds to its final gorgeous poem, almost mystical in its energy, Joseph proves himself a master not just of the sonnet, but of the sequence as a medium.

[Jane Riordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the positives of staying in someone else's home is that you can peruse their bookshelves and find titles that you wouldn't normally have picked.

This little book of poems had been left on the bookshelf in the guest room of where we are currently staying and kept me engaged for a few evenings before switching off the light.

The author writes poignantly about a father, now deceased, who was never really present for him and who, in death, becomes more of a presence, demanding more of his attention, than he ever was when alive.

The poems range from the purely practical, the accepting to the regret and the longing and one does gain something of the push-me-pull-you existence of those children and young people who crave a relationship with a distant and often absent parent. We are after all, always a child until that sad time at which both our parents die and then we are forced to accept the mantle of true adulthood, often causing great reflection.

Anthologies of poems are never easy to review, it is a far more personal genre than fiction, but this collection, written in a patois and with heart, are well worth a read.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

From "Light"

"My grandmother fried fish, we ate, she was happy,
even as she knew that later that afternoon
my father would be gone again into that gone momentum. "

From "Broadway "

"But it is a long time now we forgive you, Albert.
Not for what you was not, but for who you promise
to be and unfulfil. For the way your laughter
could spark up space like matchstick flame."

From "Rings"

"I only have to look at my hands to see my father. "

[Siobhan Hypatia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joseph builds the story of his enigmatic father with grace and care. There are moments of pure richesse in the language. The slipping between Trinidadian dialect and standardised British English keeps the reader on their toes and evokes some of the lived experience of such code-switching. It's worth checking out the YouTube video in which Joseph performs with improvising jazz musicians.

[Apina_lukee_kirjoja · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me quite long to get into this. But when I did, perseverance was rewarded. A beautiful book on a complex father relationship, which remains complex and full of questions till the end. Which is fine; one can make peace with it.

Everyone with parents would benefit from reading this.

And of course there's the poetic skill too. But it's not enough alone.

[✰matthew✰ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this collection was very lyrical and flowed well. it covers a wide range of topics and emotions. the inclusion of images is a great idea. some of the poems in this collection were particularly beautifully written.

[Shane Rajiv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection. Sad. Tinged with grief and a lost connection with his father he sees a bit more later in life and those non-fiction stories where you never fully understand why things were the way they were. Like real life.

[Hattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

poems that are so complex and full of depth. a real insight into another person and their experiences of being a human being growing up on the other side of the world to me. depicts familial relationships and culture very well.

[Muhammad Rajab Al-mukarrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicate. Full of memories.

[Stephanie Dargusch Borders · Rating 4 out of 5]

A frank and searing elegy of poems to a father. I really connected with the exploration of how little we know about our parents and how weak the bonds between child and parent can be.

[Archie Hamerton]

Read for Work

[Cath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hurt like an open wound

[Michael Chowning · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I knew Albert personally

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Further evidence the TS Eliot Prize is the biggest scam going

Enjoyable. Don’t understand how it won tho

[Ronnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems that sway and call to the memory of a father who was both momentous and absent.

[Rich Lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just been listening to some of these (that's right I listen to poetry now) and it really added a depth I hadnt found- would really recommend

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful, emotional collection based around the writer's memories and perceptions of his father. Joseph has a gift for imbuing apparently simple objects and observations with a poetic glow. Different voices, dialects and registers are combined to great effect. I found a small number of the pieces too journalistic.

[Jungian.Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This autobiographical collection explores the author's relationship with his father, after his father's death. And because "...memory has a curious sting", he seems to finally perceive his father as a well rounded individual who had loved and lost despite his absence and somewhat disregard. With each poem Anthony draws us closer to his relationship with stories on religion, death, food, and small worlds they inhabited.

Some of my favourite poems are "Precipice", "A gap in language", "The trembling unto death", and "The work of generations".

"While we turn she says that she is near
the end of a circular motion.
...
That soon it will be our turn too, to turn
towards our graves.
...
Life and death are simple
when considered in this way."

[Alexander Donnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Axe
The Chargehand
El Socorro
El Socorro II
Dreadlocks of Mystery
A Gap in Language
Precipice
Tumulus II

These are the first eight poems I starred in the collection upon first reading. Axe, oh my God. Everything a poem I would love to write myself should be. I will come back to this collection.