Table of Contents
Echo 1
Aunt Beryl Meets Castro 9
My Mother Remembers 11
Jamaican British 13
Ode to My Hair 14
The Perseverance 16
I Move Through London like a Hotep 18
Sound Machine 20
Dear Hearing World 22
'Deaf School' by Ted Hughes 25
After Reading 'Deaf School' by the Mississippi River 27
For Jesula Gelin, Vanessa Previl and Monique Vincent 28
Conversation with the Art Teacher (a Translation Attempt) 32
The Ghost of Laura Bridgman Warns Helen Keller About Fame 33
The Mechanism of Speech 35
Doctor Marigold Re-evaluated 36
The Shame of Mabel Gardiner Hubbard 37
Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris 38
To Sweeten Bitter 40
I Want the Confidence of 42
After Being Called a Fucking Foreigner in London Fields 44
Closure 46
Maybe I Could Love a Man 47
Samantha 49
Thinking of Dads Dick 59
Miami Airport 60
His Heart 62
Dementia 64
Happy Birthday Moon 65
Acknowledgements 67
Notes 69
Further Reading 73
Interview with the Author 75