Utter

Overview

Exploring a universe where anything can happen, because there is nothing that can’t be imagined and there’s no connection between different experiences that can’t be made, Utter breaks down old boundaries: between the past and present, between human and animal, animate and inanimate, between the Caribbean and the global elsewhere, between the experienced world and the world of books. Vahni Capildeo rarely appears to speak in her own voice but creates a whole range of striking and sometimes mysterious personas; in the dialogue among the voices in the poems, a way of seeing, multifarious as it is, begins to emerge. The poems express a view that finds much in the world that is unjust, cruel, corrupt, and hypocritical but also finds moments of community and tenderness; there is darkness and there is humor, and sometimes the latter seems the only possible response to the former.

Reviews

“This is an important literary debut: the sound of a new, unique, captivating voice. The journey she describes with such ferocity and such an ebullient, unexpected sense of fun is also emotional, and she entices the reader into travelling with her. She triumphantly disproves the pessimism of her title: undiscovered countries are here spread out before us, ready for exploration.” —Peter Conrad

“This extraordinary poetic sequence is a kind of linked fantasia, the unflagging play of a powerful intelligence and consciousness over a series of themes: monsters of self-awareness or personal encounters, interspersed with memories and mental insights of piercing power and sympathy. It is an astonishing debut.” —Bernard O’Donoghue

“Vahni Capildeo's profoundly intelligent poems are original in a very unusual way. They are modern, but composed without fear of traditional subjects or language. Every topic springs to life, in a way that is both disturbing and beautiful. These are life-enhancing poems that stay with you long after you have closed the book.” —Bernard O’Donoghue

“If Capildeo keeps writing like this, then we other poor scribes will mass to break her cunning nails and delicious bones, pull out her unique glimmering teeth and pluck out her sincere and breathtaking heart long before we dare touch her sensual Gnostic tongue.” —Brian Catling

Author Biography

Vahni Capildeo is the author of the poetry collections Dark & Unaccustomed Words, No Traveller Returns, Person Animal Figure, and Undraining Sea, and her work has appeared in the anthologies Identity Parade, In the Telling, and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. She is a contributing editor and the UK agent and representative for the Caribbean Review of Books and a member of the International Advisory Board for the Journal of Indo-Caribbean Studies.