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- [00:01]
Sponsor Voice
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- [00:59]
Kevin Young
Hi, you're listening to the New Yorker Poetry Podcast. I'm Kevin Young, poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine. On this program, we invite a poet to choose a poem from the New Yorker archive to read and discuss. Then they read a poem of their own that's been published in a magazine today. My guest is Raymond Antrobus, who's received the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Ted Hughes Award from the Poetry Society, the Sunday Times Award, Young Writer of the Year Award, the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, and the Somerset Maugham Award, among other honors. Raymond, welcome. Thank you for being here.
- [01:38]
Raymond Antrobus
Thank you. An honor to be here, Kevin.
- [01:41]
Kevin Young
So the first poem you've selected to read is a protactile version of Tintern Abbey by John Lee Clark. Tell us, what was it about this particular poem that caught your attention?
- [01:54]
Raymond Antrobus
So John Lee Clark is a poet that I've been following for a long time now, specifically his mode as a deafblind poet. His philosophy around disability in poetry or disabled poetics is something he often talks about. He's a poet I personally have been taking quite a few cues from. In my own work. He uses erasure. He references the syntax of sign language and how that's different to the syntax of written English because I am also educated in a deaf school, learned sign languages as a, as a, as a kid. And this is something that I've had to contend with, especially, you know, thinking about canons and literature canons, poetry canons, and how John Lee Clark's own words, he calls it the hearing canon. You know, with all of these poets are like able bodied who use disability often as like a metaphor, you know, and it's even kind of baked into the English language. When people say things like, I am deaf too, I am blind, too. These kind of clumsy sayings that often don't actually consider the reality of blindness or deafness or just not being a fully abled body coming through the world. So, yeah, you know, John Lee Clark, again, is almost like an oracle figure to me, you know, in poetry, a living oracle. So I'm so excited to be able to talk about their work because this particular poem that I've chosen, I happen to know the Wordsworth poem that it's referencing. And, you know, this got me thinking as well. John Lee Clark, you know, as well as being a deafblind poet, but also call himself an American poet. We met at the T.S. eliot.
- [03:49]
Kevin Young
You and I, Kevin.
- [03:50]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah, you and I. We met the T.S. eliot. And I've been thinking so much about, like, T.S. eliot as a figure because technically he's American, but he claimed Englishness.
- [04:01]
Kevin Young
Right, right.
- [04:02]
Raymond Antrobus
And some I've been having conversations with more American poets about, like, what their relationship is with English poetry and English canonical poetry, or even, as John Lee Clark would call it, English hearing canon. I love that, you know, because it's something that I think English poets have to contend with in a different way to American poets. I think that John Lee Clark is just one of the most stimulating, multidimensional. I don't even know where to begin in talking about.
- [04:35]
Kevin Young
Well, why don't we turn. Why don't we turn to the poem? This is Raymond Antrobus reading a protactile version of Tintern Abbey by John Lee Clark.
- [04:45]
Raymond Antrobus
When I smelled the smoke, I knew where I was. Okay, there is water flowing along our flank here and here. Near our knee is an old church. But let us scroll up our leg a few times here inhale the smoke. Our cold tipped nose sniffing the back of our feet. Fourth hand we hand heel our laps. Thick turf houses with pastures that give me an edifice rub up against the very fingernails. The grass continues back to the brash water. And here I need a cave. Thank you. Perhaps someone is holed up in there, tending to flames that tickle your palm warm. But never mind. Let us rove ahead to where I found. Give me tree heavy with foliage. Can you feel that? Now a claw for the knobbly roots where I laid my head and crumbled clumps of dirt that I brushed off. I had been here before. And then. Let me think a fist. No, no, give me an upturned claw and fist. Feel it swaying because of the rolling sun bumping into finger planets. You were Right. We do need a fist after all. Sliding the fire out of our palm, we fold those thimbles into one world. It makes perfect sense for the sun to claim our shoulder, our muscular star, our many jointed spear, our electric arm, all shaking and snapping through five cycles of sweat and bleed, each wobbly turn a summons. We have indeed come back to breathe in sweet earth's smoky hand.
- [06:44]
Kevin Young
That was a protactile version of Tintern Abbey by John Lee Clark, which was published in the September 18, 2023 issue of the New Yorker. So beautifully done, Raymond. Thank you so much for that. I really feel like you brought it into a different realm. And it's almost like there's many realms that this poem occupies, which I love, and so many of them are tactile. You know, there's so many hands and fists, and it ends with the word hand, and especially in that second stanza. Let me think. A fist? No, no. But then that fist comes back. We do need a fist after all. And, you know, the nature, that sort of, I don't know, the Trent Turn Abbey kind of quality becomes almost personal and embodied for me.
- [07:41]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah, and that's totally intentional, because when you read the Wordsworth poem that John Lee Clark is responding to, there's a few allusions in the Wordsworth poem to beauty being impossible for a blind person to capture. Like, you couldn't capture this landscape or tint Hintern Abbey and the significance of, you know, the river and the history without your eyes. And here, centuries later, we have a deaf, blind poet taking up Wordsworth on that challenge in a way, like, you know, he's accepting Wordsworth's challenge. It's like, okay, let's go. Let's get tactile. And I'm gonna open this poem with what I smell. And the layers of the smoke that, you know, you've got like a. The smoke that's establishing the terrain. You know, smoke itself is a kind of clever obscurity. You know, it's there and it's not there. And then there's the idea of a kind of smoke screen between Wordsworth and Clarke. I mean, there's so much work going on in this poem, it just gives me goosebumps.
- [08:49]
Kevin Young
Well, the way you talk about it, too, is. And the way you rendered it, I think, was so beautiful. Let us rove ahead to where I found. Give me tree. It's almost like the nature is being conjured by the speaker, which I think is one of the things that I feel like it's taking issue with or responding to. Or riffing off of nature emanating toward the receiving genius poet. Instead, it's like, give me tree. It's gonna be made up or I'm gonna take what out of this nature, this world in some way? I don't know. There's something beautiful about that.
- [09:32]
Raymond Antrobus
Oh, totally. And give me tree is again coming from the perspective of the poet John Lee Clark at this Give me tree, you know, because he uses a tactile kind of sign language, which is, which embodies the full. You know, that the chest is employed in his language as well as the hands. Give me trees. This kind of, I know, affirmation, this kind of command. And I feel like the whole poem is kind of an instruction, destruction and a guide, a searching. That's like a double edgedness throughout, like a subtle affirmation of agency and capability. Again, you know, of this, of a disabled poet, the disabled voice. It's not a bitter poem, it's not an angry poem. I don't really sense bitterness, but I do sense a kind of lyrical mischievousness. You know. The poem is full of play, right?
- [10:26]
Kevin Young
Yes, it's full of play. One and the grass continues back to the brash water. And here I need a cave. Like there's a kind of conjuring. It feels almost like a spell is being cast.
- [10:40]
Raymond Antrobus
Oh, exactly, yes. And that spell and that conjuring and talking about the arm, the line of the flames that tickle your palm warm and like the verb tickle, the work that that's doing. So in, in sign language poetry and BSL or ASL or we also have a thing called visual vernacular. Verbs in poems are literally movements, you know, you don't say them, you move as the verb and you know, verb, obviously this kind of action word, this doing word. So that's the other layer I feel the kind, you know, the, the fourth hand, to use a term from John E. Clark's poem of this fourth wall, this fourth hand, this like way that he, he's just speaking at so many languages, you know, at once. And I think that, you know, it's the true mark of, of I, you know, this is just my opinion because if you're gonna, if you're gonna talk back to Wordsworth, like you say this great poet, you're gonna have to meet the poet on those levels. Right. And I just, I think he does it. I think John Lee Cart accomplishes that and more.
- [11:51]
Kevin Young
Right. Well, and I think it's not a translation. It's not trying to say, oh, you heard this in that poem. I'M going to tell you what it's like, but it has a quality of. This word just popped in my head of resurrection, almost of that. And there's a kind of both a satisfaction in the body embodiment and a kind of. I just, I'm trying to put my finger on. But, you know, maybe that's the point. It's a fist, it's a finger, it's a physical motion. And there's a kind of elusiveness that is part of the playfulness.
- [12:28]
Raymond Antrobus
Right, exactly. And what you're saying about the resurrection is so on point because we're also in an abbey, in a church, and it happens to be quite a significant historical landmark in Wales. And by sheer coincidence, when I got the email to be invited onto this podcast to speak with you, I was actually in Wales on my first father son trip. And just kind of thing. Yeah, it was like there was so many kind of stars aligning with this poem and with this conversation. And just like the thing that you're saying about the resurrection or the kind of otherworldliness, you know, if we go back to that kind of the physical place of this abbey, and I read a little bit about the historical significance of this abbey, which is that, you know, in the 15th century, when it was surrendered, you know, that this particular land was conquered, it became like a catalyst for the next 500 years of Welsh history. So language change, culture change, all like, you know, and so there's a real significant thing about this abbey now not having a roof. Right. It's not contained.
- [13:44]
Kevin Young
Right, right.
- [13:45]
Raymond Antrobus
And so there's something uncontainable about the poem and what the poet is proposing about what Wordsworth is attempting with this idea of beauty and the capturing of beauty. And, you know, it's taking place in this kind of. There's this holy earthy, gothic, ancient place that's built to inspire and contain awe and fear and timelessness and that. That. Like a poem, like an ambitious poem.
- [14:13]
Kevin Young
Right, yes, yes. Well, and I see it in the poem too. Toward the end, there's a kind of. Well, there's a groundedness and then a kind of ascent almost in the second finger planets, the fire out of our palm we fold those thimbles into one world. That is an amazing line. And someone else might end there, but instead it keeps going. It makes perfect sense for the sun to claim our shoulder. There's a kind of furthering and maybe it's that ruthless gesturing up that happens. And this end, the muscular star, many jointed sphere, electric arm. There's that Mix of the natural and the maid that I think is really important to the poet as well. Sweat and blizzard, each wobbly turn a summons. I mean, any of these are just lines I wish I could conjure up. But it keeps going with, we have indeed come back to breathe in sweet earth's smoky hand, which you read so beautifully. I wonder about that We. At the end of the poem, did you take it as all of us we or how do you read that we?
- [15:30]
Raymond Antrobus
I read that as a kind of, you know, again, the fourth hand, the fourth wall, the kind of wink that, hey, we. We're all in on this. Like, even if we have different vantage points and perspectives, you're we. We right now are speaking across oceans. You know, this. Talking to this American and English tradition of poetry. And then the kind of romantic idea within the poem and within this conversation of, you know, where the body meets the N and the natural elements. When I think about this idea of the muscular, that the muscles and the shoulder of the star, you know, because I had to look up, because asl, American Sign Language, bsl, British Sign Language are quite different actually.
- [16:17]
Kevin Young
Right.
- [16:17]
Raymond Antrobus
But sun is a similar enough motion that it would make sense in a deaf British person or a deaf American person. Oh, wow, they're both up in the sky. And this is what I mean about almost like an overwhelming stimulation I get from a poem like this, because I'm thinking multi dimensional. Like, this is the closest I get to, you know, being a bilingual, trilingual kind of poet. I get to read like a translator.
- [16:45]
Kevin Young
You know, you're doing it so beautifully and helping us understand. What about, you know, I'm always fascinated by African American Sign Language, which in part comes about from what I come to understand, you know, segregation, but also, I think, from versions of, you know, black style. And there's a lot of black deaf activists who write beautifully about it, much better than I can speak about it, you know, do you think about that kind of cultural. Is there a black British Sign Language? You know, how does culture impact these kind of questions?
- [17:24]
Raymond Antrobus
Kevin, no one has ever asked me this question before. And it's something that I do think about because, you know, sign language, like spoken language, is it has an accent, it has regionalized. And on my way here, again, completely coincidentally bumped into a friend of mine who is a British Sign Language translator. And, yeah, we were talking about some of the signs that are quite, you know, taken different ways in different contexts. For example, the sign for a word like India doesn't translate well in India itself because the sign For India is like, if you look at the shape of India as a country, you. You make the shape with your hands, like a V shape.
- [18:07]
Kevin Young
But.
- [18:07]
Raymond Antrobus
But in an Indian sign language, that is the sign for vagina. So it's actually like, you know, people get offended in India because it's like, why are you calling my country a vagina? And these are like, very real deaf world conversations. So to go back to what you're saying about, like, a black British Sign Language and a black American Sign Language, it's kind of like language being its own technology, its own organism. It's molding in its own kind of way. I do really recommend watching John Lee Clark talk on YouTube. There's a couple of YouTube videos of him in which you can see how he uses the tactile language. And he requires two translators, one on each hand, to translate his poems and his and his conversations. Like, even right now, I'm able to speak more fluid with you. I've got captions up on the screen. There's all of this technology, and we're able to speak so much more fluidly now as deaf people, you know, and we're better integrated into the world. And this poem, John Lee Clark's poem, even that is a kind of technology that is actually really well integrated into the world, into the deaf world, into the hearing world, into this tactile, blind world, even though it's like a, you know, poem on a visual thing on the. On the screen. Text.
- [19:32]
Kevin Young
Now, in our October 23, 2023 issue, the new Yorker publish your poem Signs Music, which you'll read for us in a moment. Is there anything you'd like to say about the poem beforehand? Anything you might want listeners to know going in?
- [19:47]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah. So, like John Lee Clark, I have different versions of my poems. I have, like, an English written version of my poem. I have a spoken version of my poems. And then I have a, like a sign language bsl, often version of my poems. This is a poem in which, when I work with sign language interpreters, they instantly understand that it's been written by a deaf poet because they could see some of the syntax. So in bsl, for example, concrete nouns, they begin sentences. You have to begin your sentence with a noun, with an object, with a thing, and you have to place that thing. So when I read this poem or perform it with interpreters, I always make sure that the interpreter is very close to me. They touch my shoulders so that you can see that they are an extension in a way of my body and of the poem, because there's a part in the middle of the poem when I list objects and the way in which those objects come, the order in which they come just flows really well, like on the hand and on the. On the body. And that's something that's not picked up in the audio or the text version of this poem. But it is something that I think about, you know, when composing. The other thing I want to mention is the birds that appear in this poem, which kind of cohere or chime with John Lee Clark's poem and Wordsworth as a kind of, you know, that. That nature element, you know, the romantic connotation of the poet in nature. And that's nature. We have a capital N, as Wordsworth would do. And one of the. One of. You know, as well as, you know, I'm. I'm a British and I'm a Jamaican poet. And Bob Marley was taught to me by my dad as a poet. You know, my dad wanted me to understand. Bob Marley was a poet. So Three Little Birds is a kind of a head nod, a very kind of cheeky little head nod. Because this is the last poem in the. In the book, which is called Sand Music, in which there's some stuff in there about Pomali.
- [21:45]
Kevin Young
Okay.
- [21:45]
Raymond Antrobus
And I guess one more thing I should say is that birds is a sound that I can't hear without hearing aids. So it's not until I got hearing aids that I was able to access birdsong. And that's, you know, these are significant things, I guess, to the poem.
- [22:00]
Kevin Young
Well, here is Raymond Antrobus reading his poem Signs Music.
- [22:06]
Raymond Antrobus
Signs Music. The first word my son signed was music. Both hands, fingers conducting. Music for everything, even hunger. Open mouth for the chew, chew, spoon. Squealing music. We'd play a record while he ate. Music when he wanted milk. So I pour and hum Lullaby or I Don't Know by Bill Withers because it's okay not to know what you want. And I want him to know that. Music is wiping the table after the plates. Music is fill my forehead for fever is whatever occurs in the center of the body, whatever makes arms raise up. Up. The second word my son signed was bird. Beaked finger to thumb. Bird for everything. Outside, window, sky, tree, roof, chimney, aerial airplane, birds. I saw I'd given him a sign name. Fingers to eyes raising from thumbs wide eye meaning watchful of the earth in three different roots. Hebrew, Arabic, Latin. I love how he clings to my shoulders and turns his head to point at the soft body of a caterpillar sliding across the Counter and signs.
- [23:28]
Sponsor Voice
Music.
- [23:33]
Kevin Young
Wow. That was Raymond Antrobus reading signs. Music.
- [23:41]
Sponsor Voice
Hi, I'm Susan Glaser. I'm Jane Mayer. And I'm Evan Osnos. And we host the Washington Roundtable from.
- [23:46]
Kevin Young
The New Yorker's political scene podcast.
- [23:48]
Raymond Antrobus
What are some of the topics we.
- [23:50]
Kevin Young
Like to get into on this show, guys?
- [23:52]
Sponsor Voice
Well, I mean, let's point out we have a very tough job in this election year of 2024. You know, for me, it's the fact that we get to deal with this together. So a little bit of a group therapy session. For me, what's really fantastic is to get behind the scenes and hear what you guys are picking up about what's really going on. Everybody sees the headlines, but you guys fill in the gaps.
- [24:18]
Kevin Young
Occasionally we get somebody to come on too, and I'm always smarter for it.
- [24:21]
Raymond Antrobus
If you get a great historian who.
- [24:22]
Kevin Young
Can tell you about a presidential election 50, 60 years ago, often it can help you understand about what's happening today.
- [24:29]
Sponsor Voice
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- [25:16]
Kevin Young
What a beautiful poem. I instantly, I mean, you know, sometimes poems take a few times. I think it instantly was like this poem does all the things that you sort of said, but also so much more. I think there's something about the learning of the language from the sun that's also about the learning of so many other things. This connection, hearing a new or for the first time bird. It's all there to me. I saw I had given him a sign name. And then you describe it. Fingers to eyes raising from thumbs. I love that we get the sign before we get the for the rest of us translation of that.
- [26:06]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah. I'm so overjoyed that this is the poem that you selected, Kevin. So thank you for giving this a home in a New Yorker. Yeah, it's been a journey because. Yeah, it's a poem which I wrote while my son was just starting speech. And there was this point where he had acquired more sign language than he had speech. And I knew that was going to Change with my son is hearing. So I was just kind of ruminating on that. The fact that he had more language of the hand, of the body, of the face, you know, than of the speech, of the sound. And that's going to come later, but the fact that the sign was, you know, still a kind of forming a foundation for him. And that's something that I really thought about, you know, having a hearing sign. Like, I want him to be invited into, to learn sign, basically, and to be able to read a poem when he's older, like John Lee Clark, and get as much out of it.
- [27:06]
Kevin Young
Right.
- [27:06]
Raymond Antrobus
You know, as. As his dad does.
- [27:09]
Kevin Young
First of all, you had me at the first word my son signed. I mean, it starts so beautifully. And it's about that connection, of course, that is physical. And you say it there. Both hands, fingers conducting. What a break. Music for everything, even hunger. Okay. You know, now you have me even more, because I think it's about need, but also about pleasure. Open mouth for the choo choo spoon squealing music. We'd play a record. I mean, there's so much of the tactileness just to keep with that word that's happening here, but so much about the body and also about the lineage that is being explored. I don't know. I'm a sucker for that. Having written poems about my son when young and you have to write them doesn't mean they come out well necessarily. But this, of course, beautifully does. I love how you jump into Bill Withers and. Because it's okay not to know what you want, and I want him to know that. Yeah, I mean, I can see why. It's the title poem.
- [28:22]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah.
- [28:22]
Kevin Young
Did you know it when you were writing it? Were you like, this is the one, or were you like.
- [28:26]
Raymond Antrobus
I had that rare gift of having a manuscript and this was literally the last poem I wrote for it. It was kind of like it landed like, it's like, okay, I need to go back to language. I need to go back to becoming a father. And like you said, I need to go back to the play. And I get. I guess these are the things that, you know, poets like John Lee Clark have given me, like, a license and an inspiration to be playful with these things, which are also marginalized languages with very painful history. So in adopting these tools, this language, for joy and for communion and for learning, like, because I'm also a teacher. I know you teach as well, Kevin.
- [29:14]
Kevin Young
Yeah, I don't as much as I used to, but yes, I did it for 20 years. So yes, Continue, please.
- [29:18]
Raymond Antrobus
Yes. Like, so, you know, there's also that. The kind of lineage of the poet as teacher. Right. The poet as one who brings an idea into a classroom and says to everyone, hey, everyone, look at this. Let's play with this. Let's. Let's get really almost childlike with this, like, you know, beginner's mind. Because this is a poem that is. Is a pure osmosis of just being around my son as someone who's. Yeah. Forming and acquiring speech, language, sound, shape, hand shape, you know, and how that's communicating something, you know, so.
- [29:59]
Kevin Young
Yeah.
- [29:59]
Raymond Antrobus
Like, it. And it falls in. Well, I think with the rest of the book, which. So the book Signs Music is a. Is a 2:2PO sequence poem. And it's a poem I started writing pretty much the day my partner told me that, you know, we were going to be parents. I decided writing this, like, really long poem, not knowing what was happening, and it became very bitty. Like, I was, like, writing little bits here. I mean, I thought about Lucille Clifton, right. And how she writes short poems while she was parenting. And parenting became the poetic of her work. And so that kind of happened to. To. To me, I think, in this. In this book. So there's also like a. A loose cell Clifton lineage in there, which is to say an African American way of speaking, because my. My son is also American. You know, he's. His mom is from New Orleans.
- [30:48]
Kevin Young
So I see you have no choice but to have music. I have no choice. Jamaica, New Orleans. I mean, what else? I mean, what else you got is there?
- [30:59]
Raymond Antrobus
That's what I'm saying.
- [31:00]
Kevin Young
These are the most musical places on earth among them.
- [31:03]
Raymond Antrobus
Totally. Totally. And language has to serve that, you know, that's what I got to give him, you know?
- [31:10]
Kevin Young
Well, I love that there's this kind of hinge of the title, Signs comma, music, which. It could be an equal sign, it could be a directional sign. You know, there's something about the joining of it.
- [31:25]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah.
- [31:26]
Kevin Young
Were you thinking about ones first and then is it signs first, then music? You know, how does that title resonate, especially with what you're saying to us about how you compose the book?
- [31:36]
Raymond Antrobus
You know, Kevin, even though it's only two words and a comma, the amount of consideration and staring out the window, because it wasn't just. It wasn't just the word. It was also like, where do I put the emphasis? Do I emphasize the signs or do I emphasize the music in the title? Is it, like, signed in italic and then music as, you know, maybe Even like a bold. Like, it was. Even a whole font thing.
- [32:03]
Kevin Young
You're having a font experience, right?
- [32:05]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah, right. Because I. But I went with signs because I decided that signs had to be the active. That's. That. That's almost like the verb there. Like, the signs, music. And like, you just very cleverly pointed out, because you're a poet and you get these figurative language things with more than one meaning. There's also the whole thing of like. Like something giving you a sign. Like, you say, a direction or.
- [32:28]
Kevin Young
Right, Right.
- [32:29]
Raymond Antrobus
A sign from beyond the body, from the heavens, from the gods. You know, like.
- [32:34]
Kevin Young
Yes.
- [32:35]
Raymond Antrobus
So there is this kind of, I don't know, higher, almost like, divine quality there. But. But it's still earthy and grounded enough to be like, well, this is on the hands, this is on the body. This is part of us. It's of the earth. It's, again, that capital, nature. So, yeah, you know, it kind of. It sang to me, you know, and it stayed with me. I thought I would have to kind of make a point of defending it with my editors. I often. I play a game called Justify My Line, where if they. If they point out a line that, you know, that they want to get rid of, then I have to justify it. And if I can't make a case for it, it goes, right, we all.
- [33:16]
Kevin Young
Should be doing this.
- [33:18]
Raymond Antrobus
So the Science of Music, I was like, I had a whole case for, you know, how I was going to do. And no one asked for the defense. Everyone was like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [33:28]
Kevin Young
I'm sorry, but you've, you know, you nailed it. So hate to break it to you. You don't have to defend it.
- [33:34]
Raymond Antrobus
I mean, it doesn't always happen. Obviously, we know we are many, many failures. Many failures before this. But this was like, there weren't that many drafts to this poem, and I am quite a. Quite an obsessive reviser. And, you know, so this is something that I felt like I really wanted it to remain. Like, the energy of it, the fact that it came so quickly, like. But again, I think it's years of reading and thinking of poets like John Luke Clark, which gave me this access.
- [34:05]
Kevin Young
You know, what I love about this poem is, like you said, there's play, there's music, there's birds, which make me think of augury and seeing. And I love this beaked finger to thumb bird for everything outside, window, sky, you know. And again, there's your son as an infant, encountering the outside, almost like a poet in nature. But there's also aerial airplane Just a great, great catalog. And I think it does, you know, both the title and the poem do. What I think poems, good poems do is that they enact rather than describe. They're not telling you about it. It's really. You're in the experience of what I think of as deep connection and pleasure and the ecstatic in the biggest sense. So thank you for that.
- [35:01]
Raymond Antrobus
I mean, if only all my poems could do that, right? If only we could do that every time we show up at our desks.
- [35:08]
Kevin Young
Hey, I think once in a while it works. And you thankful for that. And I'm thankful for you for this poem. As we end, I did want to talk for a moment about Boyega and it's a very different tone, but I think it'd be great to just mention on him because we're publishing work from Boyega Odobongjo's first big major book, Adam, which is coming out from Faber and Faber and really soon. And you are how I knew about his work. Maybe. We know that you told me that he had new work, but he had died last year very tragically. And so do you want to say just a word or two to those of us who are coming to his work? I'm so pleased that we're able to feature him and do an excerpt, longer feature, which is going to be quite beautiful. But also it's. It's hard to talk about and think about. So I, you know, if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.
- [36:12]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah. You know, it's funny, I just recently received my copy of Adam, the title of Boyega's book. And when he told me that his book is called Adam, I was, oh, man, I was like, man, a debut, A debut book called Adam. And you know, because I knew. Familiar with the themes of the things he's writing about. So, you know, he's from a, you know, he's got quite evangelical Nigerian Christian atmosphere in his upbringing. But then he's also got like Felikuti and all of these other entities of, of language, of energy, of right, of. Of story of ancientness and newness. And talking about, you know, we. You asking me about black Britishness, I feel like Boyega Odobanjo captured in his book a kind of black Britishness that is, you know, it's not, I guess.
- [37:11]
Kevin Young
I don't think you see it everywhere, for one. I mean, it's not represented in the.
- [37:16]
Raymond Antrobus
Way that it's not. Yeah. And it does seem like black Britishness has now come to like pop culture consciousness in an Interesting way, You know, we've always been here, but I think the music has got a lot to do with that, with, like, you know, Drake crossing over and discovering grime music. And, you know, there's more, you know, J. Cole, these. These big American rappers who put Grime MCs on. And I guess me and Boyega were both from, you know, the East End of London, where a lot of grime, a lot of that music had originated from. And that kind of bleeds and lends and, you know, is a part of our poetic. But Boyego as a person was also this kind of very joyful blokey lad, mate down the pub, you know what I mean? You know. You know, he had this kind of very buoyant spirit, and he could also. He would code switch as well, you know, and that code switching is in the poems.
- [38:10]
Kevin Young
It is absolutely, you know. Yeah. You see the ways that he's writing. And, you know, we were talking about being trilingual, and I feel like that's in the poems. There's this multilingual sense of everything from Yoruba influences to T.S. eliot, who we mentioned earlier, too.
- [38:26]
Raymond Antrobus
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love this book. It was a real moment to hold this book in the physical form as an object and not be able to hold him in the physical form. He dreamt about this book, about Adam. He had a big vision for this book.
- [38:43]
Kevin Young
Yeah.
- [38:43]
Raymond Antrobus
And, like, T.S. eliot is actually someone he spoke about to me once, like, yeah, you know, I want to be in that room. He actually came to our reading, Kevin. You know, he was there. Like, he came when we read. He was in the audience, and I spoke to him about. About that afterwards. He's like. He was just kind of like, I want to be there. You know, I want to be on that stage. And I was like, boyega, you'll go be there. You're the next. When your book comes out, you'll be there, you know, and so to. Yeah, it's such a. I don't know, abrupt end. But also there's this kind of beginning of. Of. Of. Of, you know, his work and his life becoming public now, you know, and. And I should say my poem sans music. Like, there are poems in there that wouldn't exist without Boyega. He. He edited a couple of my poems. I helped him edit some of his. There's a poem in. In. In Adam where he wrote, like, an early draft of it in my. In my mom's house. He came. He came to my mom's house, and we're talking about. Yeah, we were talking about this, like, dialects and, you know. Yeah, like, I guess a kind of black Britishness kind of ends talk and putting that into a poem, because I had a poem called that he liked and he did a. He. He was like playing with that in a. In a poem. And, and, yeah, and I read it. I read it in the, in Adam recently, man, and it was. Yeah, it was a real moment. Like I say, it was like, wow, this was like a real kind of intimate memory I have. And now it's in the book and now it's this public thing, and now it belongs to everyone. And there's some. Something really bittersweet about that, you know. So he's a. He's a great poet. I can't wait for his books to be out in the world and for more people to be talking about his work.
- [40:22]
Kevin Young
Well, so beautifully said and thank you for helping us keep his flame alive. And I only wish I'd gotten to know his work earlier. And, you know, your brotherhood and community comes across beautifully. And the book is really gorgeous.
- [40:39]
Raymond Antrobus
Thank you. Thank you. I know Boyega is, you know, wherever he is, I know he feels that.
- [40:47]
Kevin Young
Well, and I'm looking forward to your book, too. Signs Music. When is it out again?
- [40:50]
Raymond Antrobus
It's out September in the US September 17th with Tin House and in the UK, September 12th with Picador.
- [40:59]
Kevin Young
Well, we look forward to it. Thank you so much for talking with us today. As you can tell, I could keep going.
- [41:06]
Raymond Antrobus
I know.
- [41:07]
Kevin Young
It's really a pleasure. It's really a pleasure. Signs Music by Raymond Antrobus as well as John Lee Clark's A Protactile Version of Tintern Abbey can be found on new yorker.com John Lee Clark's most recent book of poems is how to Communicate Raymond Antrobus. Forthcoming collection is Signs Music.
- [41:31]
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- [42:28]
Raymond Antrobus
Whitehead Turner Nudged Elwood who had a look of horror on his face. They saw it. Griff wasn't going down. He was going to go for it. No matter what happened after.
- [42:41]
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Or Joy Williams, her father, was silent. Slowly, he passed his hand over his hair. This usually meant that he was traveling to a place immune to her presence, a place that indeed contradicted her presence.
- [42:57]
Raymond Antrobus
She might as well go to lunch.
- [43:00]
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