{"product_id":"signs-music-isbn-9781959030799","title":"Signs, Music","description":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2024 T. S. Eliot Prize\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Exhilarating.”―Victoria Chang, author of \u003ci\u003eWith My Back to the World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Told with frankness and a masterful wielding of image, Signs, Music is so tenderly rendered that I found myself gasping.”―Shira Erlichman, author of \u003ci\u003eOdes to Lithium\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcclaimed poet Raymond Antrobus returns with \u003ci\u003eSigns, Music\u003c\/i\u003e, a stunning book of poetry that captures imminent fatherhood and the arrival of a child.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStructured as a two-part sequence poem, \u003ci\u003eSigns\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMusic\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt once searching and bright, deeply rooted and buoyant, Raymond Antrobus’s \u003ci\u003eSigns\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMusic\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\"Delicate, simple, gratifying. . . . From Oklahoma to London, Hebrew to Sanskrit, the King James Bible to William Wordsworth’s daffodil poem, the setting and context add entire dimensions to the collection…. I found myself re-reading and basking in my favorite lines.\"—\u003cb\u003eAssociated Press\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Tender. . . . Deeply felt.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What a beautiful poem. . . Both the title and the poem do what I think good poems do, they enact rather than describe. . . . you're in the experience of what I think of as deep connection and pleasure and the ecstatic in the bigger sense.\"—\u003cb\u003eKevin Young,\u003ci\u003e The New Yorker \u003c\/i\u003ePoetry Podcast\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Intimate. . . . This book moves with deceptive directness and ease, giving way to a significant record of lyric inquiry.\"—\u003cb\u003eLit Hub, A Best Poetry Collection of September\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Touching.\"—\u003cb\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Antrobus captures ordinary life with an episodic, unconstrained energy.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Quietly and sincerely circles fatherhood in every language possible, including the titular signs and music.\"—\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePoetry Northwest\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Antrobus’ lyrical verse moves like a delicate but unflinching whisper, guiding readers through a journey that is deeply personal yet universally resonant.\"—\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAdroit Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Reading Raymond Antrobus's \u003ci\u003eSigns, Music\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\"—\u003cb\u003eVictoria Chang, author of\u003ci\u003e With My Back to the World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Told with frankness and a masterful wielding of image, Signs, \u003ci\u003eMusic\u003c\/i\u003e is so tenderly rendered\u003cbr\u003ethat I found myself gasping\". —\u003cb\u003eShira Erlichman, author of \u003ci\u003eOdes to Lithium\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Raymond Antrobus's \u003ci\u003eSigns, Music \u003c\/i\u003eis 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.\" —\u003cb\u003eWill Harris, author of\u003ci\u003e Rendang \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eBrother Poem\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Signs, Music\u003c\/i\u003e 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\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e Signs\u003ci\u003e, Music\u003c\/i\u003e is a prayer for a world that might yet look tenderly upon young black life.\" —\u003cb\u003eVictoria Adukwei Bulley, author of\u003ci\u003e Quiet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"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.\"—\u003cb\u003eJoe Dunthorne, author o\u003ci\u003ef O Positive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Stunning in its concise clarity, Signs, \u003ci\u003eMusic\u003c\/i\u003e 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\". —\u003cb\u003eMarwa Helal, author of \u003ci\u003eAnte body\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRaymond Antrobus\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Hackney, London, to an English mother and Jamaican father. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eTo Sweeten Bitter\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Perseverance\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAll The Names Given\u003c\/i\u003e. 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. \u003ci\u003eAll The Names Given\u003c\/i\u003e 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.","brand":"Tin House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233549431013,"sku":"NP9781959030799","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781959030799.jpg?v=1767736613","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/signs-music-isbn-9781959030799","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}