GOBS Poetry Book Club: Victoria Adekwei Bulley – Quiet

GOBS Collective invites you to chat and scribble your heart away at our Poetry Book Club, hosted in Nottingham Central Library and via Zoom.

GOBS Poetry Book Club provides a space for poets, writers, readers, performers, and artists to meet over a cuppa, and have a good chinwag over our poetry collection of the month. For the first half of the session we’ll talk about the book, and in the second half we’ll do some focussed writing exercises based on our favourite poems.

It’s preferable that you read the book before you come along, but if you don’t get chance and fancy heading down anyway just pop along and there’s sure to be something for you to say, listen to, or write. No judgement.

Victoria Adekwei Bulley – Quiet

A black British poet making her thrilling American debut explores the importance of “quiet” in producing forms of community, resistance, and love.

“Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; [they] perfectly embody the political through the personal.”—Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

How does one encounter meaning amid so many kinds of noise? What is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist—and what liberating potential might it hold? These poems dwell on ideas of black interiority, intimacy, and selfhood, and they celebrate as fiercely as they mourn. With a metaphysical edge and a formal restlessness attuned to both the sonics and the inadequacies of language, Quiet navigates the tension between the impulse to guard one’s inner life and the knowledge that, as Audre Lorde writes, “your silence will not protect you.”

Get a 15% discount on this book at Five Leaves by using the code GOBS

GOBS Poetry Book Club is also available to attend via Zoom.

Please note we have limited places available both in-person and online, so booking is essential.

GOBS Poetry Book Club is free to attend (donations welcome)

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When: Saturday 18 October, 11am-1pm

Where: Nottingham Central Library (Meeting Room 1), 1 Carrington Street, Nottingham, England, NG1 7FH

Any enquiries can be directed to Bridie at info@gobscollective.org

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At previous events, we've looked at:

Caleb Femi – Poor

Tolu Agbelusi – Locating Strongwoman

Caroline Bird – The Air Year

Ella Frears – I am the Mother Cat

Kae Tempest – Running Upon the Wires

Roger Robinson – A Portable Paradise

Malika Booker, Sharon Olds & Warsan Shire – Your Family, Your Body (Modern Poets Three)

Inua Ellams – The Actual

Cecilia Knapp – Peach Pig

Yomi Sode – Manorisms

Will Harris – Rendang

Anthony Anaxagorou – Heritage Aesthetics

Hannah Lowe – Chick

Warsan Shire – Blessed is the Daughter Raised by a Voice in her Head

Gboyega Odubanjo – Adam

Brian Bilston – Alexa, what is there to know about love?

Amy Acre – Mothersong

Amanda Gorman – Call Us What We Carry

Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek – Marshmallow Clouds

Vanessa Kisuule - A Recipe for Sorcery