Skin Can Hold
Vahni Capildeo
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Longlisted for the 2020 BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature. A Telegraph Book of the Year 2019. Vahni Capildeo, author of Measures of Expatriation (Forward Prize, 2016), returns with a third Carcanet volume, Skin Can Hold. The collection marks an adventurous departure for a pen-and-paper poet. These texts are the fruit of collaborative experiments in theatre, dance and other performance, drawing on burlesque and mime as well as Capildeo's fascination with Caribbean masquerade. The poems are astir with voices and bodies usually kept 'between the lines' of poetry: a weeping poltergeist disrupting the decorum of a lyric; polyglot workmen along an ivory-towercity road. Novels are turned inside out to become dramas of sleaze and surveillance.
Product Details
| Publisher | Carcanet Press |
| Publish Date | July 30, 2019 |
| Pages | 128 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781784107314 |
| Dimensions | 8.4 X 5.3 X 0.5 inches | 0.5 pounds |
About the Author
Vahni Capildeo is a Trinidadian Scottish writer inspired by other voices, ranging from live Caribbean connexions and an Indian diaspora background to the landscapes where Capildeo travels and lives. Capildeo's poetry (seven books and four pamphlets) includes Measures of Expatriation, awarded the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2016. Following a DPhil in Old Norse literature, Capildeo has worked in academia; in culture for development, with Commonwealth Writers; and as an Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer. Skin Can Hold reflects on experiments with masquerade and embodiment undertaken during Capildeo's Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellowship and Harper-Wood Studentship at Cambridge, and completed thanks to a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellowship at the University of Leeds.
Reviews
'An adventurous and verbally challenging texture, moving across conceptual distances at great speed, avoiding the conventional mechanisms of depiction or statement, but rhythmically alive in a way that draws the reader after [them] down unknown paths.' Peter Riley, The Fortnighly Review
'Capildeo's intelligence, learning, wit, anger, skill and insight appear to be, on the evidence so far, limitless... This is poetry which is interested in looking for the truth with the only tool we have to do so, language... This is real - stop, slow down, read, think - poetry.' Wood Bee Poet
'Capildeo's poetry explores the ambiguity and capaciousness of language, and is deeply interested in the provisionality of meaning.' Francesca Bratton, The Compass
'It has a sense of purpose, and its playfulness is infectious... There is a sharpness to the observations and a bold specificity to their articulation, often presented with an eye for humour. Capildeo's delight in this experiment is evident' Chrissy Williams, Poetry London
'Masterfully moves between so many forms that the brilliance for any voyager en-route is immediately palpable.' SPAM Zine Books of the Year 2019
'On your feet, then, the syntax poems sing, dismantling the traditional audience-speaker receivership of poetry.' CaribbeanBeat
'This new collection is a tour de force of theatrical speculation' Jade Cuttle, Guardian Poetry Review Roundup
'Capildeo's intelligence, learning, wit, anger, skill and insight appear to be, on the evidence so far, limitless... This is poetry which is interested in looking for the truth with the only tool we have to do so, language... This is real - stop, slow down, read, think - poetry.' Wood Bee Poet
'Capildeo's poetry explores the ambiguity and capaciousness of language, and is deeply interested in the provisionality of meaning.' Francesca Bratton, The Compass
'It has a sense of purpose, and its playfulness is infectious... There is a sharpness to the observations and a bold specificity to their articulation, often presented with an eye for humour. Capildeo's delight in this experiment is evident' Chrissy Williams, Poetry London
'Masterfully moves between so many forms that the brilliance for any voyager en-route is immediately palpable.' SPAM Zine Books of the Year 2019
'On your feet, then, the syntax poems sing, dismantling the traditional audience-speaker receivership of poetry.' CaribbeanBeat
'This new collection is a tour de force of theatrical speculation' Jade Cuttle, Guardian Poetry Review Roundup
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