Overview

Structured as a two-part sequence poem, Signs, Music explores the before and after of becoming a father with tenderness and care--the cognitive and emotional dissonances between the ""hypothetical"" and the ""real"" of fatherhood, the ways our own parents shape the parents we become, and how fraught with emotion, curiosity, and recollection this irreversible transition to fatherhood makes one's inner landscape. At once searching and bright, deeply rooted and buoyant, Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music is a moving record of the changes and challenges encompassing new parenthood and the inevitable cycles of life, death, birth, renewal, and legacy--a testament to the joy, uncertainty, and incredible love that come with bringing new life into the world.

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9781959030799

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Reviews

In this honest, witty and humane book, Antrobus brilliantly pins down the before and after of parenthood--and the uncrossable gap between the two. These poems manage to look both backwards and forwards: at who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.--.Joe Dunthorne, author of O Positive Signs, Music wades devotedly through weathers of joy, grief, wonderment and terror--all of which arise as fleetingly on the page as they do in the throes of new parenthood. Vulnerable and hopeful, though never expectant of certainty or utopia, Signs, Music is a prayer for a world that might yet look tenderly upon young black life.--Victoria Adukwei Bulley, author of Quiet Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music is unlike any poetry about becoming a father I've read. A report from two different countries--the land before birth and afterwards--the strength of this book comes from what it lets stand: half-thoughts, snatched conversations, hard memories. Caffeinated anticipation gives way to exhaustion and wonder, and a darker strain of introspection. The transition from fatherlessness to fatherhood isn't smoothed over, but the son's birth allows for a reconfiguration of relationships--with Antrobus's mother, with the city he grew up in. 'They've always been here, ' he writes. 'I'm just / moving slowly enough to see them.' Here is a book of slow seeing which reaches a level of genuine intimacy.--Will Harris, author of RENDANG and Brother Poem

In this honest, witty and humane book, Antrobus brilliantly pins down the before and after of parenthood--and the uncrossable gap between the two. These poems manage to look both backwards and forwards: at who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.--Joe Dunthorne, author of O Positive Tender. . . . Deeply felt.-- ""Publishers Weekly"" Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music is unlike any poetry about becoming a father I've read. A report from two different countries--the land before birth and afterwards--the strength of this book comes from what it lets stand: half-thoughts, snatched conversations, hard memories. Caffeinated anticipation gives way to exhaustion and wonder, and a darker strain of introspection. The transition from fatherlessness to fatherhood isn't smoothed over, but the son's birth allows for a reconfiguration of relationships--with Antrobus's mother, with the city he grew up in. 'They've always been here, ' he writes. 'I'm just / moving slowly enough to see them.' Here is a book of slow seeing which reaches a level of genuine intimacy.--Will Harris, author of RENDANG and Brother Poem Signs, Music wades devotedly through weathers of joy, grief, wonderment and terror--all of which arise as fleetingly on the page as they do in the throes of new parenthood. Vulnerable and hopeful, though never expectant of certainty or utopia, Signs, Music is a prayer for a world that might yet look tenderly upon young black life.--Victoria Adukwei Bulley, author of Quiet Stunning in its concise clarity, Signs, Music testifies to more than the process of becoming a parent for the first time. It bravely parents author and reader alike through the undeniable parallels between childhood and personhood, father-making and nation-making, while documenting the often hidden and inextricable relationship between violence and tenderness and the brutal necessity of both in the transition from human to caregiver. 'I keep asking people about children. / How do you keep them alive?' In his attention to sound, space, and language, Antrobus remains innocent and present, never naive, gently pointing to what we might drop from our language if we want to be remade. This is an incredible follow-up to his previous hat trick of collections.--Marwa Helal, author of Ante body Told with frankness and a masterful wielding of image, Signs, Music is so tenderly rendered that I found myself gasping.--Shira Erlichman, author of Odes to Lithium Reading Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music, was an exhilarating (re)ride into the wonders and terrors of becoming a new parent. It's hard to explain how much parenting can change a person, but Antrobus succeeds: ""I broke up/with announcing my convictions and good news/on the internet I broke up with talking to myself/as if I'm not there I broke up with people-pleasing/and the trembling boundary between life and still life."" Here is a beautiful mapping of a journey of this life that becomes this life in all of its anaphoric radiance. Each letter in these poems is bursting at the seams.--Victoria Chang, author of With My Back to the World

"In this honest, witty and humane book, Antrobus brilliantly pins down the before and after of parenthood--and the uncrossable gap between the two. These poems manage to look both backwards and forwards: at who we were, who we are and who we hope to be.--.Joe Dunthorne, author of O Positive Reading Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music, was an exhilarating (re)ride into the wonders and terrors of becoming a new parent. It's hard to explain how much parenting can change a person, but Antrobus succeeds: ""I broke up/with announcing my convictions and good news/on the internet I broke up with talking to myself/as if I'm not there I broke up with people-pleasing/and the trembling boundary between life and still life."" Here is a beautiful mapping of a journey of this life that becomes this life in all of its anaphoric radiance. Each letter in these poems is bursting at the seams.--Victoria Chang, author of With My Back to the World Signs, Music wades devotedly through weathers of joy, grief, wonderment and terror--all of which arise as fleetingly on the page as they do in the throes of new parenthood. Vulnerable and hopeful, though never expectant of certainty or utopia, Signs, Music is a prayer for a world that might yet look tenderly upon young black life.--Victoria Adukwei Bulley, author of Quiet Raymond Antrobus's Signs, Music is unlike any poetry about becoming a father I've read. A report from two different countries--the land before birth and afterwards--the strength of this book comes from what it lets stand: half-thoughts, snatched conversations, hard memories. Caffeinated anticipation gives way to exhaustion and wonder, and a darker strain of introspection. The transition from fatherlessness to fatherhood isn't smoothed over, but the son's birth allows for a reconfiguration of relationships--with Antrobus's mother, with the city he grew up in. 'They've always been here, ' he writes. 'I'm just / moving slowly enough to see them.' Here is a book of slow seeing which reaches a level of genuine intimacy.--Will Harris, author of RENDANG and Brother Poem"

Author Information

Raymond Antrobus was born in Hackney, London, to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the author of To Sweeten Bitter, The Perseverance, and All The Names Given. He was awarded the 2017 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize (judged by Ocean Vuong) for his poem 'Sound Machine'. In 2019 he became the first poet to be awarded the Rathbones Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre. Other accolades include the Ted Hughes Award, the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, and a Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. All The Names Given was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize, and several of his poems were added to the GCSE syllabus in 2022. His picture books for children are published by Walker Books (UK) and Candlewick Press (US). Antrobus is an advocate for several D/deaf charities, including DeafKidz International and the National Deaf Children's Society. He divides his time between England and New Orleans.

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