Carcanet Press - Continental Shelf

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Demerara whose east coast raised me
From a mere stalk to stand straight

To stand tall no matter what current
Help me find your grain your flow
And Demerara sweeten me

So my art keeps your river's caveat
Your sense of cane fields bathed in sweat

from 'Demerara Sugar' by Fred D'Aguiar

Continental Shelf traces a journey, across continents and from youth to maturity. It moves from memories of childhood in Guyana, through a long elegiac exploration of the shootings at Virginia Tech University in 2006, to the reflective closing section which gives its title to the book. Fred D'Aguiar celebrates individuals and the histories embedded in places. He conjures up a sensuous childhood world of characters, stories, a loved particularity - a smell of bitumen, the local hero who comes last in a National Cycle Championship, a distant train's incantation of 'greenheart, mora, baromalli' - impressions so distinct and powerful that 'fumes... spin my head / Back whenever I catch a whiff from a car'. In D'Aguiar's Elegies for the thirty-three people who died in Virginia, that loss of unique and particular individuals is mourned, in a scrutiny of what civil and private life has become, and how, alongside grief, we may recover delight in the world. In his first full-length collection since Bill of Rights (1998), D'Aguiar celebrates how imagination and memory enable us to cope with violence and death. Love, above all, is the mainstay.

Contents

Local Colour

Bring Back, Bring Back
A Clean Slate
The Return
At Sea
Reap
Calypso
Railway
Tributary
H2O
Matriarch
Something Imagined
Tamarind Season
Playing House
R O Y G B I V
Caribbean
Bullroarer
The Barber-Green
Caiman
Snake and Ladder
After Birth
Ledge
Pan
S-Joe
Dara Singh
Demerara Sugar
Leaving
Sabbatic
The Shell Pond
National Cycle Championship
Subaltern
The Never-Never
Houses not Homes
Guyana Dreaming Wilson Harris
Local Colour
Succession

Elegies

Continental Shelf

Well
Martial Art
3am
Jump Rope
Moonwalk
Star Fruit
Continental Shelf

Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents. He grew up in Guyana, returning to England in his teens. He trained as a psychiatric nurse before reading African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He was Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Cambridge University and has ... read more

'D'Aguiar interrogates and reassesses whatever he sees in a poetry that is flexible and fast paced, every action, every relationship thrown into fierce relief by a sense of threat and insecurity...'
Charles Bainbridge, The Guardian
Praise for Fred D'Aguiar 'In parts of Letters to America, Fred D'Aguiar comes to seem like Walcott's true twenty-first-century heir ... Fred D'Aguiar has written 'a canticle of water', a book for the individual bowed, imperilled, under the wave of history - monarchical and imperial - and crying out for collective action to stop it from consuming further shores. Letters to America is emphatically worth reading.'

Camille Ralphs, Ambit

'There are some exceptional poems, including the title poem Letters to America (An Abecedary) [...] The poetry is vibrant and musical'

Adrian B. Earle, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal

'An array of sublime poems that unfold unsettling accounts of 'black' identity and the horrors of slavery...written with refreshing candour.'
Mohammad Fahran, Wasafiri
'Translations from Memory everywhere suggests the vital necessity of continually revisiting and revising our cultural past... It asserts the presence of those who have been written out of it and shows how the complex legacies of slavery and colonialism remain under-explored and undigested.'
Sarala Estruch, The Times Literary Supplement
'D'Aguiar manages to weave together memoir, history and critical race theory in ways that deepen our understanding of his poetics...Translations from Memory [...] will no doubt cement his standing as one of the most important Guyanese writers of the twentieth century.'
Leo Boix, Poetry London
'D'Aguiar is not generally concerned with textual translation in this collection: he applies the word in a broader sense... abbreviations seem part of the serious trans-cultural game, inviting recognition, but also making the outsider notice the limits and exclusions their own education has entailed. Whether the planet's human creatures might coexist without radically mistranslating each other is one of the vigorously posed questions.'
'Reformation' was The Guardian's Poem of the Week, September 24th 2018

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Continental Shelf Fred D'Aguiar 10% off Categories: 21st Century, BAME, British, Caribbean Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (80 pages) (Pub. May 2009) 9781847770431 £9.95 £8.96 Description Excerpt Author Contents Reviews Demerara whose east coast raised me From a mere stalk to stand straight To stand tall no matter what current Help me find your grain your flow And Demerara sweeten me So my art keeps your river's caveat Your sense of cane fields bathed in sweat from 'Demerara Sugar' by Fred D'Aguiar Continental Shelf traces a journey, across continents and from youth to maturity. It moves from memories of childhood in Guyana, through a long elegiac exploration of the shootings at Virginia Tech University in 2006, to the reflective closing section which gives its title to the book. Fred D'Aguiar celebrates individuals and the histories embedded in places. He conjures up a sensuous childhood world of characters, stories, a loved particularity - a smell of bitumen, the local hero who comes last in a National Cycle Championship, a distant train's incantation of 'greenheart, mora, baromalli' - impressions so distinct and powerful that 'fumes... spin my head / Back whenever I catch a whiff from a car'. In D'Aguiar's Elegies for the thirty-three people who died in Virginia, that loss of unique and particular individuals is mourned, in a scrutiny of what civil and private life has become, and how, alongside grief, we may recover delight in the world. In his first full-length collection since Bill of Rights (1998), D'Aguiar celebrates how imagination and memory enable us to cope with violence and death. Love, above all, is the mainstay. Contents Local Colour Bring Back, Bring Back A Clean Slate The Return At Sea Reap Calypso Railway Tributary H2O Matriarch Something Imagined Tamarind Season Playing House R O Y G B I V Caribbean Bullroarer The Barber-Green Caiman Snake and Ladder After Birth Ledge Pan S-Joe Dara Singh Demerara Sugar Leaving Sabbatic The Shell Pond National Cycle Championship Subaltern The Never-Never Houses not Homes Guyana Dreaming Wilson Harris Local Colour Succession Elegies Continental Shelf Well Martial Art 3am Jump Rope Moonwalk Star Fruit Continental Shelf Fred D'Aguiar was born in London in 1960 to Guyanese parents. He grew up in Guyana, returning to England in his teens. He trained as a psychiatric nurse before reading African and Caribbean Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He was Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Cambridge University and has ... read more 'D'Aguiar interrogates and reassesses whatever he sees in a poetry that is flexible and fast paced, every action, every relationship thrown into fierce relief by a sense of threat and insecurity...' Charles Bainbridge, The Guardian Praise for Fred D'Aguiar 'In parts of Letters to America, Fred D'Aguiar comes to seem like Walcott's true twenty-first-century heir ... Fred D'Aguiar has written 'a canticle of water', a book for the individual bowed, imperilled, under the wave of history - monarchical and imperial - and crying out for collective action to stop it from consuming further shores. Letters to America is emphatically worth reading.' Camille Ralphs, Ambit 'There are some exceptional poems, including the title poem Letters to America (An Abecedary) [...] The poetry is vibrant and musical' Adrian B. Earle, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal 'An array of sublime poems that unfold unsettling accounts of 'black' identity and the horrors of slavery...written with refreshing candour.' Mohammad Fahran, Wasafiri 'Translations from Memory everywhere suggests the vital necessity of continually revisiting and revising our cultural past... It asserts the presence of those who have been written out of it and shows how the complex legacies of slavery and colonialism remain under-explored and undigested.' Sarala Estruch, The Times Literary Supplement 'D'Aguiar manages to weave together memoir, history and critical race theory in ways that deepen our understanding of his poetics...Translations from Memory [...] will no doubt cement his standing as one of the most important Guyanese writers of the twentieth century.' Leo Boix, Poetry London 'D'Aguiar is not generally concerned with textual translation in this collection: he applies the word in a broader sense... abbreviations seem part of the serious trans-cultural game, inviting recognition, but also making the outsider notice the limits and exclusions their own education has entailed. Whether the planet's human creatures might coexist without radically mistranslating each other is one of the vigorously posed questions.' *'Reformation' was The Guardian's Poem of the Week, September 24th 2018* You might also be interested in: Spirit Brides Togara Muzanenhamo A Light Song of Light Kei Miller The Swerve Julith Jedamus	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! 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