What Noise Against the Cane

by Desiree C. Bailey, Carl Phillips (Foreword by)

Overview

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, this Yale Series of Younger Poets volume is a lyrical and polyvocal exploration of what it means to fight for yourself
 
“Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword
 
“Desiree C. Bailey sings true in her debut. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it transfiguring what a maroon might overhear—a call awaiting response.”—Yusef Komunyakaa
 
The 115th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, What Noise Against the Cane is a lyric quest for belonging and freedom, weaving political resistance, Caribbean folklore, immigration, and the realities of Black life in America. Desiree C. Bailey begins by reworking the epic in an oceanic narrative of bondage and liberation in the midst of the Haitian Revolution. The poems move into the contemporary Black diaspora, probing the mythologies of home, belief, nation, and womanhood. Series judge Carl Phillips observes that Bailey’s “poems argue for hope and faith equally. . . . These are powerful poems, indeed, and they make a persuasive argument for the transformative powers of steady defiance.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300256536
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Series:	Yale Series of Younger Poets , #115
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	534,900
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Desiree C. Bailey is the author of the fiction chapbook In Dirt or Saltwater and has been published in Best American Poetry, Academy of American Poets, Callaloo, and elsewhere. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and grew up in Queens, New York. Her website is http://desireecbailey.com. Carl Phillips is the award-winning author of numerous books of poetry, including Wild Is the Wind and Pale Colors in a Tall Field. In 2023 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007–2020. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Table of Contents

Foreword Carl Phillips vii

Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade 5

Guesswork 36

Ma and the Snake 37

First American Years 38

La Divina Pastora, Mother of Miracles 40

Extra Virgin Olive Oil 42

Woman in Dub 44

Fleshed Cartographies: 46

Harriet Jacobs Grips the Silence 47

Malady 48

Dancing at the Shrine in Harlem 49

It's Risky to Love in the Season of Hunters 50

Island 52

A Retrograde 53

Orfeu Negro / Black Orpheus 54

Accent 57

Ex(ile) 58

Flowers Pressed to My Head 60

Chant for the Waters and Dirt and Blade (Slight Return) 67

Notes 75

Acknowledgments 77

Editorial Reviews

Bailey can look forward to a great future as a poet.”—L. Ali Khan, New York Journal of Books

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, sponsored by The National Book Foundation

Longlisted for the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize

Finalist for the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, sponsored by the Claremont Graduate School

Named One of the Best Books of 2021 by the New York Public Library

Longlisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize, sponsored by Swansea University

“Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword

“Desiree C. Bailey sings true in her debut What Noise Against the Cane. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it transfiguring what a maroon might overhear—a call awaiting response.”—Yusef Komunyakaa

From the Publisher

Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword

Carl Phillips

"What Noise Against the Cane ruminates family and place, culture and daily rituals, and Desiree C. Bailey’s voice sings it all true, lived and imagined. There’s strength and give in each step of a journey, and traditional music informs this strong collection. Nimble phrasing and natural soil fuse into an extended narrative. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it. The single, long line at the end of each page—as if a heart-line—accrues and transfigures this collection. Identity shines in each poem. And, as if a maroon might overhear, or a call awaits a response, What Noise Against the Cane embodies an intimate conjuring that fully engages the reader.—Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa

The 2020 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize is sometimes emotionally difficult to hear. The poetry is unstintingly honest and unafraid of challenging the listener. Those unfamiliar with Caribbean speech may also have some trouble with the intense Trinidadian accent the author uses in many of the poems, but a second listen should enable anyone to get the full power of this work. And there is considerable power here, worthy of a second listen. The collection is centered on Caribbean history and mythology, and can be as educational as it is moving. Add to that a voice that is almost singing the text, and you get a marvelous poetry experience. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2022 - AudioFile