She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks

Wesleyan Poetry Series

by Marlene NourbeSe Philip

Book by Philip, Marlene Nourbese

Genres: Poetry, Canada, School, Adult, Post Colonial, Race, Feminism

100 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1989

About the author

M. NOURBESE PHILIP is a poet and writer and lawyer who lives in the City of Toronto. She was born in Tobago and now lives in Canada. In l965, when graduating from Bishop Anstey High School, M. NOURBESE PHILIP was awarded the Cipriani Memorial Scholarship for standing first in a Caribbean wide examination at the high school level. This award entitled her to carry out her undergraduate studies at the University of the West Indies. In l968 Ms NOURBESE PHILIP received her B.Sc.(Econ.) degree from the University of the West Indies.

M. NOURBESE PHILIP completed a Masters degree in Political Science (1970) as well as a degree in law at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada(1973). She practised law for seven years in Toronto, first at Parkdale Community Services and then in the partnership, Jemmott and Philip. During this time she completed two books of poetry. In l983 she gave up the practice of law to devote more time to writing.

Although primarily a poet, NourbeSe Philip also writes both fiction and non-fiction. She has published three books of poetry, Thorns - l980, Salmon Courage - 1983 and She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks - 1988 and has been the recipient of Canada Council awards, numerous Ontario Arts Council grants and was the recipient of a Toronto Arts Council award in l989.

In l988 M. NOURBESE PHILIP won the prestigious Casa de las Americas prize for the manuscript version of her book, She Tries Her Tongue... She is also the l988 first prize winner of the Tradewinds Collective prize (Trinidad & Tobago) in both the poetry and the short story categories.

Ms NOURBESE PHILIP's first novel, Harriet's Daughter, was published in l988 by Heinemann (England) and The Women's Press (Canada). This book was one of two runners up in the l989 Canadian Library Association Prize for children's literature. Harriet's Daughter was also first runner up in the Max and Greta Abel Award for Multicultural Literature. Her second novel, Looking For Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence, was published in l991. In l994, NOURBESE PHILIP's short story, "Stop Frame" was awarded the Lawrence Foundation Award by the journal, Prairie Schooner.

In 1990, M. NOURBESE PHILIP was made a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry and in 1991 became a McDowell Fellow.

M. NOURBESE PHILIP'S short stories, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in magazines and journals in North America and England, and her poetry has been extensively anthologized. Her work - poetry, fiction and non-fiction is taught widely at the university level and is the subject of much academic writing and critique. She has taught creative fiction at the third year level at York University.

Two collections of Ms PHILIP's essays, Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture and Showing Grit: Showboating North of the 44th Parallel, were published in November l992 and June l993. CARIBANA: African roots and continuities -Race, Space and the Poetics of Moving was published as a chap book in 1996 and a third essay collection, Genealogy of Resistance and Other Essays-followed in 1997.

In 1995 M. NOURBESE PHILIP was awarded the Toronto Arts Award in writing and publishing.

M. NOURBESE PHILIP's first play, Coups and Calypsos, was produced in both London, England and in Toronto during 1999. A stage adaptation of Harriet's Daughter, her popular novel for young adults was successfully work-shopped in both 2000 and 2001 using a script written by the author.

In 2001 NourbeSe Philip was recognized for her work as "a revolutionary poet, writer and thinker" by the Elizabeth Fry Society of Toronto which presented her their 2001 Rebels for a Cause award .

That year M. NOURBESE PHILIP was also the recipient of the YWCA Woman of Distinction award in the Arts.
Her nominees stated:

"The experiences of Black women and girls are foremost in NourbeSe's works, as are issues of belonging, language, place and location."

In 2001 Nourbese Philip was

Reviews

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

REQUIRED READING FOR A DECOLONIZED WORLD. This should be the first book in any decolonized reading list of poetry. The essay at the end on language, power, and colonization is the most brilliant thing I've read in years on the subject. I wanted to cheer and weep while reading it. The struggle to make a language for ones imaginative capacity as a woman, a woman decontextualized and colonized, in a "politely but vehemently racist" society -- though I am not an African Caribbean and so that particular facet struggle I can only witness and listen and learn to understand -- that struggle she describes to destroy or decenter language in order to allow it to express the imaginative capacity of this female, foreign, colonial subject, no where have I seen it better articulated.

Read it, and then read it again, and then read it again until you know it in your blood.

[rayon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poetry itself was so cerebral but so vital. This is not a poetry book for enjoyment but a textbook for teaching, for paving decolonised blueprints for the poetic form. I will be coming back to it again and again as an African Caribbean poet as I continue to write. Her essay at the end brought me to tears, such an important and seminal work for Black Caribbean writers.

[⏺ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading to decolonise your bookshelf.

"how can you / when the smallest cell / remembers / lose a language"

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think her poetry raised interesting questions about the African speaking of themselves and their communities through a colonial language, but her poems were often overly harsh and negative. Defeatist, and her concluding essay raised few options for gaining autonomy as a marginalized person speaking English.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew. The poems themselves are FULL, and then the essays give so much more (and make me think in other ways about silence).

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for the essay at the end; I didn't understand the poetry to be honest.

Read for my "Black Feminist Theory and Praxis" class.

[Sohum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best poetry that has been written in this/these languages.

[Amanda Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

M. NourbeSe Philip has what may be considered an essayistic talent of translating or tracking the struggle with language and (un)certainty onto the page, of a notated searching. She makes visible the mechanisms underlying the process of writing, speaking, and understanding, an approach not unlike the act of squeezing a lemon over ink once made secret to us. (The result can sting.)

Philip demonstrates in her hybrid work "She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks" her intimate struggle with language, which is for her “the continuum of expression” (84) from Caribbean to “standard” English, and in so doing produces a radical and breathtaking form of political demonstration that reveals English as “the tainted tongue it truly is” (85).

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Linguistic rape and subsequent forced marriage between African and English tongues has resulted in a language capable of great rhythms and musicality; one that is and is not English"

And one that is, in our age of standardized tests, increasingly disregarded as just such a forced marriage. This book's been around and still has much to say that we frequently fail to hear.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best title ever. lovely.

[Muthee BM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book from an elder who keeps teaching, pushing the i-magination, and always asking us to remember. She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks aims to live up to the title by interrogating language and how it came to be our "mother tongue", reminding us "English is a foreign anguish". I have loved "Discourse on the Logic of Language" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=424yF...) and finally reading it and seeing the form on the page is a great joy. The page is a stage where words perform throughout the book, and what a performance!

[sherb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading good poetry can make you feel like you've just learned an entirely new truth about the universe and our existence within it. Nourbese feels like she sees things on dimensions that are inaccessible to the rest of us, introducing the world to what liberated postcolonial poetry can feel like. Evie Shockley describes Philips' incisive vision the best:

"The poet can take a word and hold it up to the light to see what it obscures, what it refracts, what it illuminates, can blow air into it to hear its song, its call, its howl; can crack it open; can use it to open us" (i)

[Joe Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Nourbese Phillip through her 'Zong!' Collection. She interests me a lot as an experimental poetic. I love how she uses the page to create a visual experience for the reader. I love this collection in particularly the 'Discourse on the Logic of Language' section. It is a very clever selection of poetry, which gives a chilling insight into slavery through mythology and children's tales.

[Bahar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a great collection with so many powerful ideas. I have to admit that it is not a quick read. Each poem deserves contemplation and reflection. Both the format and the content lead the reader to solve a puzzle: bringing together different pieces that seem incompatible even absurd at first but later reveal a great harmony. As the book description suggests, this is "an extended jazz riff" with its musicality, polyphony, and transitions.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really excellent rhythmic poetry, and a great meditation on language and lost language. There was a strong throughline but I found the language bits much more engaging than the rest. I'm sure it would be lovely read aloud.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly and brilliantly written poetry collection about being a black woman in a colonized country. This piece makes you think and take a really close look at the intricacies of language.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of poetry and essay.

[Emma Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, loved the incantation

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed the way I look at poetry. There’s a sense of familiarity that comes with reading her work. It’s become my favourite!

[Sanua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her poem "Meditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheekbones" is top. Read at university.

[Manuel Abreu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesss. Will review later

[Katie]

I first read M NourbeSe Philip in an university English class, and I must say I love her poetry! I love the way she deconstructs the English language to decolonize and look at African and Caribbean identities.

[Stephanie McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorites are "Discourse on the Logic of Language", "Universal Grammar", and "She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks".

[Aileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection retelling the Persephone myth from a Caribbean perspective. The use of language and imagery truly showcase Marlene's talents as a Creole poet.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"each word creates a centre
circumscribed by memory... and history"
P. 96

"(5) Do words collect historical responses?"
P. 74

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

really need to take a poetry class or something