Anthony Joseph at March's writLOUD - Anthony Joseph

Here's a podcast of a reading I did recently for writLOUD, Rada, London.

Anthony Joseph at March 2011 writLOUD

The poet treats the writLOUD audience to poetry from his new old and as yet unpublished collections - while discussing the provenance of his work.

Reading in Paris, Jan 30 2011

Rubber Orchestras Cover Art

Here's a sneak preview of the cover art for my forthcoming collection Rubber Orchestras, due October 2011 on Salt.

Review of 'Bird Head Son' by CRB

Anthony Joseph’s opening poem is titled “Bosch’s Vision”, and begins:

It started as I was leaving
…..with a dim groan in the afternoon.

What started? Where are we? The title, combined with these opening two lines, is unsettling. His is a wider canvas than Robinson’s, used to explore the personal and the universal. Like Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings, Joseph offers terrifying images of suffering and Hell, which he transposes to modern Europe and Trinidad. The phrase “a dim groan” gestures to later themes of a painful upbringing, the lamentation for a distant father, and his mother’s death, to which the section “The Tropic of Cancer” is devoted. His uncluttered opening sentence calls to mind Derek Walcott’s search for the line of poetry as a clear and most natural statement. There are other instances, as in “Conductors of his Mystery”, which ends: “He came back smelling of the sea.” On the other hand, the breath space in the second line of his opening poem offers the merest hint of Kamau Brathwaite’s Sycorax style. These elements suggest that Joseph has kept a close ear on contemporary Caribbean writing, and we should not be surprised to find echoes of other Caribbean poets throughout the collection. So, for example, in this poem he recalls Paul Keens-Douglas’s refrain “Tell me again” from his poem of the same title, which invokes, among other things, the mixed blessing of Trinidad’s oil.

Here's a new review of my recent 'Bird Head Son' collection by the Caribbean Review of Books, reviewed alongside my friend Roger Robinson's 'Suckle'.

Read the whole review here :

http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/23-september-2010/homestyle/

Capybara - from Rubber Orchestras, the forthcoming colletion

Capybara

1.

Cool and dead like long brown shoes

in an Akasic coffin with Efua beads,

rimmed like a nation of Baptist promises

and desirable bells, sapphire skin, thin skin of night.

Who hurried back to San Juan?

Whose right side of hip belonged to pleasure?

Who came

shuddering

in the dining room

on a black leather chair

deep in athletic water,

like hummingbirds

in black pitch bush

alone in the house of the Capybara?

And Trinidad,

pinpricked with departments

at the ministry of light,

push those waves of fizzing foam from your throat.

Your sister, waiting in those Hindu hills.

Her laugh, and see her airport uniform,

nestled in the footfall of that nauseous heaven.

Dust on the roof of time.

2.

Marie

of the Palestine.

Your subtle twitch, your very intention

remained in the church.

But your Deacon brews the turbulence

of an ill fitting Jesus,

and in Port of Spain

the cold Capybara’s brain is lifted up and eaten

Its eye still flash the flash eye

and I fall in love.

Venetian red is the latitude

of these cruel trees.

Reading at Soho Theatre in May 2010

Blue Hues - A poem from 'Rubber Orchestras'

This is another poem from my work-in-progress, forthcoming collection, Rubber Orchestras.

Blue Hues

She said

blue, like a strange heel

steps out of bed

hunting with devilish technique

like trick bag in the white broad’s hand

The river forest hid a palace

recap of the blue slash and pocket

we walked, sliver of a deep,

her confection was flame-red

like bursting inside

Exquisite, and parted her lips

cheek bones of her

beat back the black hustler

drag played the con for sure

like old crow whiskey

in the swedish bosom of her lullabye

her hairy thighs quivered

side of the bed

blue like fifteen echoes of winter

southbound to boulevards of dirty kickbacks

weeping like Bessie

Smith with her speckled head

she guaranteed a 50-50 split

There was a funk box in the rocking room

I was years well heeled

I played a tight con

in the hard eyed world of big time crooks

once, the half witch crushed blood in my rainstorm

and awfully in love

I wore a brokedick hat like a jitney driver

starving in a bargain for coins and Dutch head

with a broken shinbone

dope racket slick and mean

like some hurting thing

till the leather tong snapped

and sealed the sweet miracle

of her breath and hip

blue blowoff in the slum section

built upstairs

of gorilla pussy and champagne.