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All the Names Given: Poems
A Guardian Best Book of the Year Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize and The Costa Poetry Award “Exquisite.” ― The New York Times Book Review
“Brave, tender and generous. . . . A haunting study of what we can find in the silences of history when history is recognized as more than a noun, when recognized as something alive and kinetic.” ―Camonghne Felix, author of Build Yourself a Boat On the heels of his much-lauded debut collection, Raymond Antrobus continues his essential investigation into language, miscommunication, place, and memory in All The Names Given , while simultaneously breaking new ground in both form and content. The collection opens with poems about the author’s surname―one that shouldn’t have survived into modernity―and examines the rich and fraught history carried within it. As Antrobus outlines a childhood caught between intimacy and brutality, sound and silence, and conflicting racial and cultural identities, the poem becomes a space in which the poet reckons with his own ancestry, and bears witness to the indelible violence of the legacy wrought by colonialism. The poems travel through space―shifting fluidly between England, South Africa, Jamaica, and the American South―and brilliantly move from an examination of family history into the wandering lust of adolescence and finally, vividly, into a complex array of marriage poems―matured, wiser, and more accepting of love’s fragility. Throughout, All The Names Given is punctuated with [Caption Poems] partially inspired by Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, in which the art of writing captions attempts to fill in the silences and transitions between the poems as well as moments inside and outside of them. Formally sophisticated, with a weighty perception and startling directness, All The Names Given is a timely, tender book full of humanity and remembrance from one of the most important young poets of our generation.
“Brave, tender and generous. . . . A haunting study of what we can find in the silences of history when history is recognized as more than a noun, when recognized as something alive and kinetic.” ―Camonghne Felix, author of Build Yourself a Boat On the heels of his much-lauded debut collection, Raymond Antrobus continues his essential investigation into language, miscommunication, place, and memory in All The Names Given , while simultaneously breaking new ground in both form and content. The collection opens with poems about the author’s surname―one that shouldn’t have survived into modernity―and examines the rich and fraught history carried within it. As Antrobus outlines a childhood caught between intimacy and brutality, sound and silence, and conflicting racial and cultural identities, the poem becomes a space in which the poet reckons with his own ancestry, and bears witness to the indelible violence of the legacy wrought by colonialism. The poems travel through space―shifting fluidly between England, South Africa, Jamaica, and the American South―and brilliantly move from an examination of family history into the wandering lust of adolescence and finally, vividly, into a complex array of marriage poems―matured, wiser, and more accepting of love’s fragility. Throughout, All The Names Given is punctuated with [Caption Poems] partially inspired by Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, in which the art of writing captions attempts to fill in the silences and transitions between the poems as well as moments inside and outside of them. Formally sophisticated, with a weighty perception and startling directness, All The Names Given is a timely, tender book full of humanity and remembrance from one of the most important young poets of our generation.
96 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2021
18 people are currently reading
507 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Antrobus
17 books112 followersRaymond Antrobus is a deaf poet and teacher. He has won the Ted Hughes Award and became the first poet to be awarded the Rathbones Folio Prize. About Can Bears Ski?, his first picture book, he says, "It's the book I could see myself reaching for as a child, and I can't wait to have it exist in the world.” He lives in England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
October 1, 2021
Antrobus, a British-Jamaican poet, won the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Ted Hughes Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for his first collection, The Perseverance. I reviewed it for the Folio Prize blog tour in 2019 and was in attendance at the Young Writer ceremony when he won. Its themes carry over into this second full-length work: again, he reflects on biracial identity, deafness, family divisions, and the loss of his father. Specifically, he is compelled to dive into the history of his English mother’s ancient surname, Antrobus: associated with baronets, owners of Stonehenge, painters – and slavers.
Tell me if I’m closer
to the white painter
with my name than I am
to the black preacher,
his hands wide to the sky,
the mahogany rot
of heaven. Sorry,
but you know by now
that I can’t mention trees
without every shade
of my family
appearing and disappearing. (from “Plantation Paint”)
Other poems explore police and prison violence against Black and deaf people, and arise from his experiences teaching poetry to students and inmates. Captions in square brackets are peppered throughout, inspired by the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim. These serve as counterparts to the sign language illustrations in The Perseverance. There are also unsentimental love poems written for his wife, Tabitha. This didn’t captivate me in the same way as his first book, but I always enjoy experiencing the work of contemporary poets and would recommend this to readers of Jason Allen-Paisant, Caleb Femi and Kei Miller.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Tell me if I’m closer
to the white painter
with my name than I am
to the black preacher,
his hands wide to the sky,
the mahogany rot
of heaven. Sorry,
but you know by now
that I can’t mention trees
without every shade
of my family
appearing and disappearing. (from “Plantation Paint”)
Other poems explore police and prison violence against Black and deaf people, and arise from his experiences teaching poetry to students and inmates. Captions in square brackets are peppered throughout, inspired by the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim. These serve as counterparts to the sign language illustrations in The Perseverance. There are also unsentimental love poems written for his wife, Tabitha. This didn’t captivate me in the same way as his first book, but I always enjoy experiencing the work of contemporary poets and would recommend this to readers of Jason Allen-Paisant, Caleb Femi and Kei Miller.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
February 16, 2022
Antrobus's second collection, following the ground-breaking and award-winning, The Perseverance. Antrobus builds on similar themes as in his first collection: being Deaf, being mixed race, while also delving into his family history, including the history of his surname (a very old English name), and his relationship to racism. It deals with complex themes lightly and with clarity, while also touching on tender emotions, such as love, both familial and romantic. I was particularly moved by Antrobus's poems about disability, and the intersection of racism and ableism, "For Tyrone Givans" and "Captions & A Dream for John T Williams of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribe". However, I wanted Antrobus to expand on some of his themes. But he's an important writer and this is an accomplished collection.
September 6, 2021
All the Names Given is the highly anticipated second poetry anthology from pure talent Raymond Antrobus who once again showcases his skilled understanding of language, cadence, emotion, beauty and memory. It is a collection of intimate, deeply personal poems flickering with gods and ghosts, and the painful electricity that runs up and down the wires of lineage and inheritance. The forty poems in Antrobus’ new collection travel between Africa, America and the Caribbean and to England and the London streets where he grew up.
The book becomes a space in which Antrobus reckons with his own ancestry and bears witness to the indelible legacy of violence wrought by colonialism. It explores how inextricable the way we inhabit the body is from the people who raise us, the shaping influence of childhood on the present self and romantic love. Formally sophisticated, with pearls of weighty wisdom and startling directness, this is a timely and tender book full of humanity and remembrance from one of the most important young poets of his generation.
There's no doubt that Antrobus is one of the most singular new talents to have recently emerged on the UK poetry scene. His voice is his alone and blends an immediate and politically attuned poetry with a finely insightful lyric to powerful and moving effect. Few recent poets have so thoughtfully addressed the many-sidedness of who we are and are discovering ourselves to be—and even fewer have found their poetry taken into the hearts of so many new readers. This is a rich, captivating and extraordinarily diverse anthology; Antrobus is an astonishing talent, fiercely committed to his craft with a long, exciting career ahead of him. Highly recommended.
The book becomes a space in which Antrobus reckons with his own ancestry and bears witness to the indelible legacy of violence wrought by colonialism. It explores how inextricable the way we inhabit the body is from the people who raise us, the shaping influence of childhood on the present self and romantic love. Formally sophisticated, with pearls of weighty wisdom and startling directness, this is a timely and tender book full of humanity and remembrance from one of the most important young poets of his generation.
There's no doubt that Antrobus is one of the most singular new talents to have recently emerged on the UK poetry scene. His voice is his alone and blends an immediate and politically attuned poetry with a finely insightful lyric to powerful and moving effect. Few recent poets have so thoughtfully addressed the many-sidedness of who we are and are discovering ourselves to be—and even fewer have found their poetry taken into the hearts of so many new readers. This is a rich, captivating and extraordinarily diverse anthology; Antrobus is an astonishing talent, fiercely committed to his craft with a long, exciting career ahead of him. Highly recommended.
August 6, 2022
This book is given to me for my birthday, the poems are for a family (the poet’s family) about himself, his hometown, his mother, father and grandmother) it’s surprising how different each poem was. The poet seems to be distraught as something could have happened to him and brought out all those feelings. I had felt them too when I read the book.
I would have loved it if he had put some explanation on each poem so we get the hang of it.
I would have loved it if he had put some explanation on each poem so we get the hang of it.
September 16, 2022
I find Antrobus intellectually acute and richly emotional.
October 14, 2021
"The first time you told me you loved me
I didn't say it back,
which is to say
that I was not loveable.
Those who have loved me before say
I made them feel second to some dream I was having.
You know the thing with dreams
you're the only one that sees them
so when I say I didn't know what was talking
the first night you said you loved me I mean
I needed to hear it in the morning
hear it said when neither of us
could be anyone
except who we are"
// Lovable
The poems in his collection become a space wherein Antrobus "can reckon with his own ancestry", complicated by being born to an English mother and a Jamaican father. In a poem after Lorna Goodison he says, "Sorry, / but you know by now / that I can't mention trees / without every shade / of my family / appearing and disappearing." He is not into shock and awe, employing instead quieter devices. He asks, "Do you hold up England / by its gilt edges, best china handles?", letting us know how such a disavowal of turbulent history and its aftermath can be damaging.
Antrobus' deafness is never out of the frame; he chooses to represent it in interesting forms. The book is punctuated with "closer captions", inspired & partially taken from the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim where focus shifts from Hearing centric to Deaf centric. Poems subtly consider sounds and their importance. Thematically, it is spread out with a little bit of everything and I would have appreciated a more put together collection. Still, it's superb.
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
I didn't say it back,
which is to say
that I was not loveable.
Those who have loved me before say
I made them feel second to some dream I was having.
You know the thing with dreams
you're the only one that sees them
so when I say I didn't know what was talking
the first night you said you loved me I mean
I needed to hear it in the morning
hear it said when neither of us
could be anyone
except who we are"
// Lovable
The poems in his collection become a space wherein Antrobus "can reckon with his own ancestry", complicated by being born to an English mother and a Jamaican father. In a poem after Lorna Goodison he says, "Sorry, / but you know by now / that I can't mention trees / without every shade / of my family / appearing and disappearing." He is not into shock and awe, employing instead quieter devices. He asks, "Do you hold up England / by its gilt edges, best china handles?", letting us know how such a disavowal of turbulent history and its aftermath can be damaging.
Antrobus' deafness is never out of the frame; he chooses to represent it in interesting forms. The book is punctuated with "closer captions", inspired & partially taken from the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim where focus shifts from Hearing centric to Deaf centric. Poems subtly consider sounds and their importance. Thematically, it is spread out with a little bit of everything and I would have appreciated a more put together collection. Still, it's superb.
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
September 2, 2021
A volume of forty poems.
My word. All the Names Given may be a slim volume but it packs the kind of punch that leaves the reader reeling. Both personal and political, intimate and global, these poems by Raymond Antrobus illustrate perfectly how history and the present impact the individual so that I felt all manner of emotions in reading them. The poet has made me understand my privileged life and to appreciate it much more clearly.
As well as being emotionally moved, I was educated by All the Names Given. Reference to a painting in Plantation Paint, for example, had me scurrying off to research the image so that the resonance of these poems reaches far beyond their reading. I’m sure too, that the more time the reader spends with Raymond Antrobus’s words, the more there is to be gleaned and appreciated. I loved the quotations from other writers that gave the poems an added interest. Again, I discovered writers like poet Christopher Gilbert whom I hadn’t encountered before. Indeed, after I’d read the collection, I found the ‘NOTES ON THE POEMS’ included at the end afforded me all kinds of new pleasures to explore further.
I thoroughly appreciated too, the poetic techniques used by the Raymond Antrobus. Enjambement illustrates how the links with history run through the present. Rhetorical questions show the reader that answers still need to be found to the questions of identity and race, as well as the attitudes to them. The asides or Caption Poems in square brackets added auditory depth that I found especially effective coming from this hearing impaired writer. White space is used so judiciously that it provides pause to allow the reader to absorb meaning, and its contrast with the written word intensifies the poetry until what is left unwritten becomes just as affecting as what is written. I thought these techniques worked so effectively because they seem natural and unforced; organic rather than self-consciously crafted.
However, although the references to different locations also add depth and colour to the writing, the poetic techniques are skilful and the historical, geographical and literary references are fascinating, what is most affecting about All The Names Given is the sense of Raymond Antrobus the man. He takes the reader through a kind of potted history of his life, from the cursing of his mother under his breath as a boy to marriage, so that All The Names Given feels as if the reader has been given privileged access into the mind of the poet, watching him change and evolve as the poems are read.
I thought All The Given Names was both brutal and tender, personal and universal so that Raymond Antrobus has included something for every reader in this collection. Indeed. I thought it was excellent.
My word. All the Names Given may be a slim volume but it packs the kind of punch that leaves the reader reeling. Both personal and political, intimate and global, these poems by Raymond Antrobus illustrate perfectly how history and the present impact the individual so that I felt all manner of emotions in reading them. The poet has made me understand my privileged life and to appreciate it much more clearly.
As well as being emotionally moved, I was educated by All the Names Given. Reference to a painting in Plantation Paint, for example, had me scurrying off to research the image so that the resonance of these poems reaches far beyond their reading. I’m sure too, that the more time the reader spends with Raymond Antrobus’s words, the more there is to be gleaned and appreciated. I loved the quotations from other writers that gave the poems an added interest. Again, I discovered writers like poet Christopher Gilbert whom I hadn’t encountered before. Indeed, after I’d read the collection, I found the ‘NOTES ON THE POEMS’ included at the end afforded me all kinds of new pleasures to explore further.
I thoroughly appreciated too, the poetic techniques used by the Raymond Antrobus. Enjambement illustrates how the links with history run through the present. Rhetorical questions show the reader that answers still need to be found to the questions of identity and race, as well as the attitudes to them. The asides or Caption Poems in square brackets added auditory depth that I found especially effective coming from this hearing impaired writer. White space is used so judiciously that it provides pause to allow the reader to absorb meaning, and its contrast with the written word intensifies the poetry until what is left unwritten becomes just as affecting as what is written. I thought these techniques worked so effectively because they seem natural and unforced; organic rather than self-consciously crafted.
However, although the references to different locations also add depth and colour to the writing, the poetic techniques are skilful and the historical, geographical and literary references are fascinating, what is most affecting about All The Names Given is the sense of Raymond Antrobus the man. He takes the reader through a kind of potted history of his life, from the cursing of his mother under his breath as a boy to marriage, so that All The Names Given feels as if the reader has been given privileged access into the mind of the poet, watching him change and evolve as the poems are read.
I thought All The Given Names was both brutal and tender, personal and universal so that Raymond Antrobus has included something for every reader in this collection. Indeed. I thought it was excellent.
September 7, 2021
This is the second collection of poems from Raymond Antrobus, after The Perseverance, which I read in June 2021.
There are similar themes in both collections: deafness, race, memory, language and our place in the world. It begins with a section that focuses on the authors surname and the way it intertwines with history and the present. Poems talk about his childhood and its complexities. His mother and his father. His grandparents. The personal as the universal.
Then there are poems about deafness. Two in particular stick in my mind that focus on how law enforcement treats the deaf - "For Tyrone Givans" and "Captions & A Dream for John T Williams of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribe."
As I always say when I write my reviews of poetry I wish I had the vocabulary that would allow me to analyse these poems from a technical point of view. But then again, perhaps I don't. All I have is knowing how a poem affects me emotional and those emotions stick.
One interesting thing in this collection are the captions that punctuate the poems. These, as Antrobus notes, were inspired by the work of a Deaf artist, Christine Sun Kim. Sun Kim is a deaf artist working with sound. One of her exhibitions, "The Sound Of / Closer Captions", takes captioned text from films and flips the experience from hearing focused to deaf focused. To quote from the Notes on the poems:
"When thinking about captions and subtitles, Sun Kim asks, 'Does sound itself have to be a sound? Could it be a feeling, emotion or an object? Could time itself become a sound?'" (p77)
[sound of mirrors breaking inside mirrors]
[p31]
This makes for a reading experience where inside and between poems one must stop and think.
I enjoyed this collection, like I enjoyed The Perseverance. Antrobus is a powerful poet.
[ripens quietly]
[p18]
There are similar themes in both collections: deafness, race, memory, language and our place in the world. It begins with a section that focuses on the authors surname and the way it intertwines with history and the present. Poems talk about his childhood and its complexities. His mother and his father. His grandparents. The personal as the universal.
Then there are poems about deafness. Two in particular stick in my mind that focus on how law enforcement treats the deaf - "For Tyrone Givans" and "Captions & A Dream for John T Williams of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribe."
As I always say when I write my reviews of poetry I wish I had the vocabulary that would allow me to analyse these poems from a technical point of view. But then again, perhaps I don't. All I have is knowing how a poem affects me emotional and those emotions stick.
One interesting thing in this collection are the captions that punctuate the poems. These, as Antrobus notes, were inspired by the work of a Deaf artist, Christine Sun Kim. Sun Kim is a deaf artist working with sound. One of her exhibitions, "The Sound Of / Closer Captions", takes captioned text from films and flips the experience from hearing focused to deaf focused. To quote from the Notes on the poems:
"When thinking about captions and subtitles, Sun Kim asks, 'Does sound itself have to be a sound? Could it be a feeling, emotion or an object? Could time itself become a sound?'" (p77)
[sound of mirrors breaking inside mirrors]
[p31]
This makes for a reading experience where inside and between poems one must stop and think.
I enjoyed this collection, like I enjoyed The Perseverance. Antrobus is a powerful poet.
[ripens quietly]
[p18]
September 11, 2021
Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance, gives another quiet, but powerful collection. I can't express enough how thankful I am for this deeply personal and vulnerable collection. There are poems to parents, to the names we are given, to love, to his deafness and the deaf community as well as to his identity of Black/Jamaican and white/English. I was especially in awe of the intergration of Christine Sun Kim's work. I will walk through the world differently because of it. The constant reminder that sound is more than just something we hear but more often than not something felt is one that every human needs.
Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC.
Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC.
October 18, 2023
I almost never review poetry books because I rarely feel qualified to review a collection that often includes disparate poems that can sometimes be quite impenetrable, but this collection blew my mind. I read it numerous times and it's a book I want to return to again and again. Also: Antrobus was in my bloody BSL Level 1 class. I sat in this class with him for 12 weeks without knowing he was a poet (he never mentioned it). I wish I'd known.
August 14, 2025
Solid collection with an interesting perspective of this experience being biracial in England.
September 1, 2024
Loved Echos so much this didn't really compare x
September 3, 2021
Raymond Antrobus's new collection of poems follows up on The Perseverance, which I reviewed a couple of years ago when it was nominated for The Times Young Writer of the Year award (I was one of the judges for the award's Shadow Panel).
Some of the themes explored in All the Names Given - identity, (dis)ability, family - are similar, but there are also big differences. I felt that in reading All the Names Given, I wasn't actually experiencing a collection so much as a single whole work. A structural feature here underlies that - the separate poems are integrated by their own [Caption Poems], material which serves to comment on and support the transitions between the poems and sometimes even to invade them, introducing another voice alongside the poem itself. This idea, which Antrobus explains is inspired by the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, both adds to the effect of the poems and calls attention to aspects of the collection, either setting up the reader for what is to come ('[sound of mirrors breaking inside mirrors]') or providing some formal space to absorb and reflect on what has just gone ('[ ]').
For me, it made reading the collection resemble the experience of a piece of classical music, with various themes and emotions evolving on different levels and different timescales both within single poems and through the book as a whole.
More important, perhaps, is that the themes and the form of the poems maps a sort of journey. The book opens with a welcome in the form of a caption '[sound of mouth and arms opening]' setting us up for a beginning, a thankful beginning
'Give thanks to the wheels touching tarmac at JFK
Give thanks to the latches, handles, what we squeeze...
Give thanks to your name, Antrobus, to landings
and beginnings, your soul needs time to arrive.'
This untitled opening poem is one of several touching on the poet's name (from his English mother, referring to a village in Cheshire, actually not far from where I grew up). It's immediately paired in the book with respects paid to his Jamaican father in a dream conversation, 'The Acceptance', which calls to mind the title of the earlier collection 'The Perseverance'). There follows an account of visiting Antrobus itself - the pub, the Big House - in 'Antrobus or Land of Angels', a poem with so many gloriously quotable lines from it opening
'I can be fiendish, I can't be English, say ghosts'
to the wary response of the landlord in the pub
'The barman's eyes in the Antrobus Arms
become sharp gates when I claim to to be English'
To a defiant assertion of belonging - or at least origin
'My mother, born here
My grandfather, the local preacher'
to an immediate confusion
'Oh, well then, welcome, he says, or land your angels
(There are enigmas in my deafness).'
continuing to a joining-up of the two sides of Antrobus's heritage (the poet and the place
'Sir Edmund Antrobus, (3rd baronet)
slaver, beloved father
over-seer, owner of plantations
in Jamaica, British Guiana and St Kitts.'
(In a later poem we learn that the 4th baronet literally owned Stonehenge, this in a poem about Antrobus's grandmother ending with the moving lines
'how lasting their voices
inside us. How deeply known.')
I think that to get the best effect (or perhaps I should say the complete effect) from this book, you should read it through in one sitting, experiencing the poems as set out with their commentary, rather than dipping into it, the poems are still, read singly, starkly moving experiences and 'Antrobus or Land of Angels' is a gorgeous example, balancing or at least presenting so many contradictions. It's followed immediately by 'Language Signs' with further thoughts on that grandfather, that father ('How do I bring back men who couldn't speak, men lost in books, drinks, graves?')
The closeness of these two poems is emphasised by another caption '[sound of connection across time]' leading into another praise poem 'On Touch'
'Salute the touches of teachers
dentists and therapists who untangle us...'
followed in succession by 'Her taste' (a nice association!) pondering Antrobus's mother's preference in men and then, in 'Text and image' the first introduction of Tabitha, who plays a greater and greater part in these poems. 'Text and Image' (the first one, on p14) is a sweet (in a good way) and slightly desperate love poem
'Tabitha; y haven't u told me u luv me
Raymond; I'm literally writing you love poems...'
(There is another 'Text and Image' (p33) which picks up the theme of being in a cinema - this time, in a dream, Raymond speaking - possibly answered by Tabitha ('Text and Image', p53) the visual element not being the painting she's working on.)
The story (is it a story? I think it's a story) then has a kind of back and to between thoughts own Antrobus's mother and his grandmother, his mother's comments on her scrapbook giving scenes form what sounds like a very full life, the thoughts on his grandmother taking a darker turn as it seems she and his father didn't get on: Tabitha's horrified reaction while 'sitting by the Mississippi', Antrobus's wondering where the story really starts - with which of the ancestors or trains of circumstance leading to now?
I am, I think, in danger of giving a running commentary on All the Names Given, or displaying a collection of bits and pieces, either of which would do a read disservice to this remarkable book and the lucid, taut language in which Antrobus expresses himself. Partly that's because having read, and re-read it, and reading it again as I write this review, I keep discovering marvellous new things and wanting to say "look!"
Tabitha, art conservator, viewing with Antrobus an 1860 painting (by another Antrobus) 'Plantation Burial' and explaining the 'several kinds of black' used in it. His father's 'heartless sense of humour' which he believes he has inherited. Very personal episodes, when Antrobus comments on the risky and marginal lives of other Black and Deaf people, and a close escape with the police (he couldn't hear what they wanted).
The book is full of gems, moments of realisation, moments when Antrobus so skilfully makes us see (hear) - those captions used so subtly to set the mood or, in a couple of places, defiantly seize the page like protesters storming a stage ('The Royal Opera House (with Stage Captions)' is a wonderful poem whether as a standalone or as part of the wider story, as is the poem that follows it 'Horror Scenes as Black English Royal (Captioned)')
More, behind this, there is so much life here. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, explorations of what it is to be a son, courtship, a wedding, all seen with clarity, the book's captioning and story-ness allowing the same things to be on view from many different directions, complementing the complicated, contested and wonderfully human identities being examined and experienced.
I think All the Names Given is even better than The Perseverance (which is itself very, very good) and I'd strongly recommend it.
Some of the themes explored in All the Names Given - identity, (dis)ability, family - are similar, but there are also big differences. I felt that in reading All the Names Given, I wasn't actually experiencing a collection so much as a single whole work. A structural feature here underlies that - the separate poems are integrated by their own [Caption Poems], material which serves to comment on and support the transitions between the poems and sometimes even to invade them, introducing another voice alongside the poem itself. This idea, which Antrobus explains is inspired by the work of Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim, both adds to the effect of the poems and calls attention to aspects of the collection, either setting up the reader for what is to come ('[sound of mirrors breaking inside mirrors]') or providing some formal space to absorb and reflect on what has just gone ('[ ]').
For me, it made reading the collection resemble the experience of a piece of classical music, with various themes and emotions evolving on different levels and different timescales both within single poems and through the book as a whole.
More important, perhaps, is that the themes and the form of the poems maps a sort of journey. The book opens with a welcome in the form of a caption '[sound of mouth and arms opening]' setting us up for a beginning, a thankful beginning
'Give thanks to the wheels touching tarmac at JFK
Give thanks to the latches, handles, what we squeeze...
Give thanks to your name, Antrobus, to landings
and beginnings, your soul needs time to arrive.'
This untitled opening poem is one of several touching on the poet's name (from his English mother, referring to a village in Cheshire, actually not far from where I grew up). It's immediately paired in the book with respects paid to his Jamaican father in a dream conversation, 'The Acceptance', which calls to mind the title of the earlier collection 'The Perseverance'). There follows an account of visiting Antrobus itself - the pub, the Big House - in 'Antrobus or Land of Angels', a poem with so many gloriously quotable lines from it opening
'I can be fiendish, I can't be English, say ghosts'
to the wary response of the landlord in the pub
'The barman's eyes in the Antrobus Arms
become sharp gates when I claim to to be English'
To a defiant assertion of belonging - or at least origin
'My mother, born here
My grandfather, the local preacher'
to an immediate confusion
'Oh, well then, welcome, he says, or land your angels
(There are enigmas in my deafness).'
continuing to a joining-up of the two sides of Antrobus's heritage (the poet and the place
'Sir Edmund Antrobus, (3rd baronet)
slaver, beloved father
over-seer, owner of plantations
in Jamaica, British Guiana and St Kitts.'
(In a later poem we learn that the 4th baronet literally owned Stonehenge, this in a poem about Antrobus's grandmother ending with the moving lines
'how lasting their voices
inside us. How deeply known.')
I think that to get the best effect (or perhaps I should say the complete effect) from this book, you should read it through in one sitting, experiencing the poems as set out with their commentary, rather than dipping into it, the poems are still, read singly, starkly moving experiences and 'Antrobus or Land of Angels' is a gorgeous example, balancing or at least presenting so many contradictions. It's followed immediately by 'Language Signs' with further thoughts on that grandfather, that father ('How do I bring back men who couldn't speak, men lost in books, drinks, graves?')
The closeness of these two poems is emphasised by another caption '[sound of connection across time]' leading into another praise poem 'On Touch'
'Salute the touches of teachers
dentists and therapists who untangle us...'
followed in succession by 'Her taste' (a nice association!) pondering Antrobus's mother's preference in men and then, in 'Text and image' the first introduction of Tabitha, who plays a greater and greater part in these poems. 'Text and Image' (the first one, on p14) is a sweet (in a good way) and slightly desperate love poem
'Tabitha; y haven't u told me u luv me
Raymond; I'm literally writing you love poems...'
(There is another 'Text and Image' (p33) which picks up the theme of being in a cinema - this time, in a dream, Raymond speaking - possibly answered by Tabitha ('Text and Image', p53) the visual element not being the painting she's working on.)
The story (is it a story? I think it's a story) then has a kind of back and to between thoughts own Antrobus's mother and his grandmother, his mother's comments on her scrapbook giving scenes form what sounds like a very full life, the thoughts on his grandmother taking a darker turn as it seems she and his father didn't get on: Tabitha's horrified reaction while 'sitting by the Mississippi', Antrobus's wondering where the story really starts - with which of the ancestors or trains of circumstance leading to now?
I am, I think, in danger of giving a running commentary on All the Names Given, or displaying a collection of bits and pieces, either of which would do a read disservice to this remarkable book and the lucid, taut language in which Antrobus expresses himself. Partly that's because having read, and re-read it, and reading it again as I write this review, I keep discovering marvellous new things and wanting to say "look!"
Tabitha, art conservator, viewing with Antrobus an 1860 painting (by another Antrobus) 'Plantation Burial' and explaining the 'several kinds of black' used in it. His father's 'heartless sense of humour' which he believes he has inherited. Very personal episodes, when Antrobus comments on the risky and marginal lives of other Black and Deaf people, and a close escape with the police (he couldn't hear what they wanted).
The book is full of gems, moments of realisation, moments when Antrobus so skilfully makes us see (hear) - those captions used so subtly to set the mood or, in a couple of places, defiantly seize the page like protesters storming a stage ('The Royal Opera House (with Stage Captions)' is a wonderful poem whether as a standalone or as part of the wider story, as is the poem that follows it 'Horror Scenes as Black English Royal (Captioned)')
More, behind this, there is so much life here. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, explorations of what it is to be a son, courtship, a wedding, all seen with clarity, the book's captioning and story-ness allowing the same things to be on view from many different directions, complementing the complicated, contested and wonderfully human identities being examined and experienced.
I think All the Names Given is even better than The Perseverance (which is itself very, very good) and I'd strongly recommend it.
June 13, 2024
[sound of mouth and arms opening]
A very unique introduction to a collection of poems.
[sound of connection across time]
Especially as the focus is on family. Jamaican father. English mother.
Funny that my mother was a clown
a college dropout who joined the circus
with another clown who made inflatable giants.
(Her Taste, p. 14)
[sound of broken beginning]
What is in a name? Antrobus a folk. A place in Cheshire. A family past. Ghosts.
My mother and I tread the cemetery
of Saint Mark’s, Antrobus,
and see everyone buried here is of Antrobus.
(Antrobus or Land of Angels)
[sound of someone wanting my skin]
Of hearing loss, hearing aids, mixed race, childhood friends, and lost cousins. Of theatre, politics, and watching racism on the telly. “How Black Will the Royal Baby Be” CNN headline in 2019.
One night, in the shower, you look at your hands and they are your
great-great-great-Grandfather’s owner’s hands. They are leaning on the
walls of his boiling house
[sound of camp fires]
Your feet are the whitest sugar and you don’t know where to step or what you’re really holding when you sneak into your Grandmother’s bedroom, her jewels hanging by the mirror
(Horror Scene as Black English Royal (Captioned))
[sound of light between us]
A marriage in Louisiana, where his skin colour matters.
I felt-tip the forms
declaring alien immigrant.
Where the form asks my race,
I write Black / White,
hand it to a man
who points at my words,
says I cannot be two races.
His short wool hair flinches
in the air-conditioned room;
his badge says his name is Jeff.
(Outside the marriage registry in Jefferson Parish there’s a 10-foot statue of Thomas Jefferson).
Sounds, words, the sound of names, the words given.
******
This is my first introduction to the poetry of English writer Raymond Antrobus. I first heard a podcast interview with him recently and was intrigued. At the age of six he was diagnosed with deafness when his family and teachers thought he had learning disability.* Helped by hearing aides, he went on to write and perform poetry. His first collection called The Perseverance won several awards including The Ted Hughes award in 2019 and short-listed for the Griffin Prize.
There is an incredible lightness in his verse, the words flow easily and almost freely. Yet sometimes there is a remark that freeze’s you in your tracks. Reflective words.
*Antrobus wrote a children’s book called “Can Bears Ski?” that focuses on his diagnosis with deafness. Illustrated by Polly Dunbar, it is a touching and funny story.
A very unique introduction to a collection of poems.
[sound of connection across time]
Especially as the focus is on family. Jamaican father. English mother.
Funny that my mother was a clown
a college dropout who joined the circus
with another clown who made inflatable giants.
(Her Taste, p. 14)
[sound of broken beginning]
What is in a name? Antrobus a folk. A place in Cheshire. A family past. Ghosts.
My mother and I tread the cemetery
of Saint Mark’s, Antrobus,
and see everyone buried here is of Antrobus.
(Antrobus or Land of Angels)
[sound of someone wanting my skin]
Of hearing loss, hearing aids, mixed race, childhood friends, and lost cousins. Of theatre, politics, and watching racism on the telly. “How Black Will the Royal Baby Be” CNN headline in 2019.
One night, in the shower, you look at your hands and they are your
great-great-great-Grandfather’s owner’s hands. They are leaning on the
walls of his boiling house
[sound of camp fires]
Your feet are the whitest sugar and you don’t know where to step or what you’re really holding when you sneak into your Grandmother’s bedroom, her jewels hanging by the mirror
(Horror Scene as Black English Royal (Captioned))
[sound of light between us]
A marriage in Louisiana, where his skin colour matters.
I felt-tip the forms
declaring alien immigrant.
Where the form asks my race,
I write Black / White,
hand it to a man
who points at my words,
says I cannot be two races.
His short wool hair flinches
in the air-conditioned room;
his badge says his name is Jeff.
(Outside the marriage registry in Jefferson Parish there’s a 10-foot statue of Thomas Jefferson).
Sounds, words, the sound of names, the words given.
******
This is my first introduction to the poetry of English writer Raymond Antrobus. I first heard a podcast interview with him recently and was intrigued. At the age of six he was diagnosed with deafness when his family and teachers thought he had learning disability.* Helped by hearing aides, he went on to write and perform poetry. His first collection called The Perseverance won several awards including The Ted Hughes award in 2019 and short-listed for the Griffin Prize.
There is an incredible lightness in his verse, the words flow easily and almost freely. Yet sometimes there is a remark that freeze’s you in your tracks. Reflective words.
*Antrobus wrote a children’s book called “Can Bears Ski?” that focuses on his diagnosis with deafness. Illustrated by Polly Dunbar, it is a touching and funny story.
January 17, 2025
“All details question / my way / of seeing.” All The Names Given, the second collection of poetry by Raymond Antrobus, follows neatly on from his debut, The Perseverance, focusing as it does on language and expression, where these concerns overlap with considerations of identity, inheritance, ideology. The governing principle of these poems is love — as if makes itself known in scrapbooks and memories, in conversations real and imagined, in grief and in silence. Antrobus is unafraid of looking his reader straight in the eye: in ‘Language Signs’ he writes how “All the men that raised me are dead, those bastards.” Poems like ‘The Royal Opera House (with Stage Captions)’ and the immediately following ‘Horror Scene as Black English Royal (Captioned)’, and the [Caption Poems] inspired by Christine Sun Kim, all play with form, visually manipulating silence and space to reimagine “the listening experience” to be more “Deaf centric” — and, in the former two poems, to comment on race and racism in the contemporary moment. There are such brilliant flashes of visceral emotional depth, in the earnest plea, “how can I show you // my love is unfolding if my words / can’t reach you glowing and wild?”, and the desperate reach of “Cousin, why couldn’t you // let us see what you were burying? Cousin // I wish sunlight on all your fields”. Steady and insistent on the “enigmas in my deafness”, Antrobus offers up an original poetics of compassion and grace.
September 20, 2023
[rating = B-]
Raymond Antrobus has so much to write about: family, race, heritage, disability, deafness, etc. His debut collection was spectacular; her really allowed the words to suck the reader in. Here, he takes a different approach, not so much on his deafness but on his family, his lineage. He talks about his whiteness and his blackness and his in-betweenness. For some reason, his poems just didn't sing as well as they had previously. It was almost as if he was so focused on the content, he forgot to dress them up in words. The ideas expressed and the emotions were all worth reading, but the poems didn't soar, didn't inspire me to go out and search through my own family's genes and histories. Antrobus is certainly talented and has much to say. Yet, he seems in a rush to get something off his chest without the careful precision and eloquence he so lovingly gifted his first collection.
Raymond Antrobus has so much to write about: family, race, heritage, disability, deafness, etc. His debut collection was spectacular; her really allowed the words to suck the reader in. Here, he takes a different approach, not so much on his deafness but on his family, his lineage. He talks about his whiteness and his blackness and his in-betweenness. For some reason, his poems just didn't sing as well as they had previously. It was almost as if he was so focused on the content, he forgot to dress them up in words. The ideas expressed and the emotions were all worth reading, but the poems didn't soar, didn't inspire me to go out and search through my own family's genes and histories. Antrobus is certainly talented and has much to say. Yet, he seems in a rush to get something off his chest without the careful precision and eloquence he so lovingly gifted his first collection.
November 2, 2021
ARC given by NetGalley for Honest Review
A beautiful collection of poems about life, being deaf/hoh, and biracial. I was very impressed with Antrobus's use of captioning throughout, creating a sort of irony within the pages (since books are essentially captions in it of itself.) It also sends a message about how hard it is to enjoy media when you are deaf.
The poems do not sway from deep emotion or difficult topics, instead they face it head on and make the reader face it as well. Many poems speak on the injustice and racial prejudice of this world and while it can be a hard thing to bear, it's an important element the reader should consume and learn about.
My favorite poems are: "The Royal Opera House (with Stage Captions)" and "A Paper Shrine."
A beautiful collection of poems about life, being deaf/hoh, and biracial. I was very impressed with Antrobus's use of captioning throughout, creating a sort of irony within the pages (since books are essentially captions in it of itself.) It also sends a message about how hard it is to enjoy media when you are deaf.
The poems do not sway from deep emotion or difficult topics, instead they face it head on and make the reader face it as well. Many poems speak on the injustice and racial prejudice of this world and while it can be a hard thing to bear, it's an important element the reader should consume and learn about.
My favorite poems are: "The Royal Opera House (with Stage Captions)" and "A Paper Shrine."
December 19, 2021
Thank you to Tin House for the gifted copy. I love poetry and this collection did not disappoint.
Antrobus’ use of [caption poems] truly brought this collection together. The use of sound, or the lack there of, gave me a connection to poems that i don’t think i would have had without the captions.
The poem IN LAW starts with the line “i feel the cuffs in his voice when he greets me”. This isn’t writing words, this is writing feelings—emotions.
I enjoyed these poems. I also enjoyed the form utilized in some of them. I would suggest this collection to anyone who truly loves a collection of moving poetry that makes u sit with emotions about yourself, your history, and current events.
Antrobus’ use of [caption poems] truly brought this collection together. The use of sound, or the lack there of, gave me a connection to poems that i don’t think i would have had without the captions.
The poem IN LAW starts with the line “i feel the cuffs in his voice when he greets me”. This isn’t writing words, this is writing feelings—emotions.
I enjoyed these poems. I also enjoyed the form utilized in some of them. I would suggest this collection to anyone who truly loves a collection of moving poetry that makes u sit with emotions about yourself, your history, and current events.
July 27, 2021
"All the Names Given" is the new collection from poet Raymond Antrobus, and is an exploration of identity, race, culture, and love, among other things. The poet explores colonialism and racial identity, often within a short, tight framework, lending the poems an intensity that longer pieces may well have lost.
A beautifully written collection, and one I look forward to rereading.
Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A beautifully written collection, and one I look forward to rereading.
Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 20, 2021
My first book by Raymond Antrobus, and I am delighted I have read it: many thanks to Picador via NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it. I shall buy a paper copy in due course as this merits rereading and on paper it will make even more sense. I am still mulling it over.
The collection of poems (free rhyme, full of quotes, very narrative and pictorial) wanted to be read in one go, as an actual story, from cover to cover. I totally engaged with the writing, which is syncopated, varied, funny, poignant. I loved the use of quotations by other writers - it clearly set the idea of lineage also in the writing, the confrontations, the explanations... Antrobus explores family, identity, living here and now, past stories and histories, the arts... (I loved his poem-review of an actual performance at the ROH of Jonny Steinberg´s A Man of Good Hope by the South African Isango Ensemble. So many questions dealt with so much acuity!!) These are timely explorations of universals and present issues all of them seem to throw a new light brought about by a very personal perspective which I found deeply engaging. Never pretentious but intelligent, accessible and allusive - demanding rereading in the best possible way. Recommended!
The collection of poems (free rhyme, full of quotes, very narrative and pictorial) wanted to be read in one go, as an actual story, from cover to cover. I totally engaged with the writing, which is syncopated, varied, funny, poignant. I loved the use of quotations by other writers - it clearly set the idea of lineage also in the writing, the confrontations, the explanations... Antrobus explores family, identity, living here and now, past stories and histories, the arts... (I loved his poem-review of an actual performance at the ROH of Jonny Steinberg´s A Man of Good Hope by the South African Isango Ensemble. So many questions dealt with so much acuity!!) These are timely explorations of universals and present issues all of them seem to throw a new light brought about by a very personal perspective which I found deeply engaging. Never pretentious but intelligent, accessible and allusive - demanding rereading in the best possible way. Recommended!
April 15, 2022
In this poetry collection by Raymond Antrobus, the author addresses his biracial identity, growing up with a drunken father, issues surrounding deafness and disability, especially revolving around policing and prisons.
There are many emotions that are displayed throughout this collection. Especially the author’s use of [caption poems] where Antrobus is inspired by the work of Deaf artist, Christine Sun Kim.
Overall, I really enjoyed the poetry and some will stick with me for a while, especially “For Tyrone Givans”.
There are many emotions that are displayed throughout this collection. Especially the author’s use of [caption poems] where Antrobus is inspired by the work of Deaf artist, Christine Sun Kim.
Overall, I really enjoyed the poetry and some will stick with me for a while, especially “For Tyrone Givans”.
June 23, 2022
I loved how these poems were reflections on Antrobus's identity, especially as someone who feels torn between his Black and white heritage, questioning exactly his place and his role. Some of these poems had really great social commentary on that, as well as on issues of deafness. Not every poem worked for me, but I think this is a solid collection overall and I will for sure give another of his works a try!
Content Warnings:
racism, police brutality
Content Warnings:
racism, police brutality
October 8, 2022
Personally I find myself engaging more deeply with issues and difference when articulated with intelligence and sensitivity as done in this book than when shouted by disruptive mobs waving placards. Many of these poems had lines and words, and even forms to savour, but I find myself returning to the themes and slowly moving forward from a slow start in relation to auditory and racial difference. Thank you RA.
October 30, 2022
my body is an object and all the names it is given
I am spending the night near an airport and takeoffs, my sisters snoring, my Angkong’s coughing, punctuate the read. Lots of heftier content and reveals in the poetry that I think the word deft is for. Really thematically rigid and distinct from The Perseverance. No one sounds like antrobus,, he who has laid such claim to what comprises it.
I am spending the night near an airport and takeoffs, my sisters snoring, my Angkong’s coughing, punctuate the read. Lots of heftier content and reveals in the poetry that I think the word deft is for. Really thematically rigid and distinct from The Perseverance. No one sounds like antrobus,, he who has laid such claim to what comprises it.
April 29, 2023
Raymond Antrobus' second collection is taut with rarely a word unnecessary or wasted. Antrobus's reflections on Africa, America, the Caribbean, and, his birthplace, England intertwine with his memories of his childhood and family and the history of his surname. Antrobus' poetry is well-crafted and emotionally powerful, but relatable. Formally complex and willing to talk about social issues in a deeply personal way, I was truly impressed with this collection.
September 8, 2024
An autobiographical sequence of poems exploring the poet's identity – particularly the history of his name - and origins and lived experiences in working class environments, reaching through to love and marriage – interspersed with captions meant to represent the poet's deafness (they relate, I think, to the sort of captions provided for deaf people to describe sounds) which makes it unusual and interesting. The Acceptance, A Paper Shrine, Text and Image were some of my favourites
December 16, 2021
I was unable to finish this book of poetry. While I enjoyed what I read, they felt repeated and best suited for a novel and not poems. The poems focus around himself and his family, much of which was better handled in The Perseverance. I do recommend Antrobus as a poet, but this was not my favorite work by him.
April 3, 2022
This is really good - I'd like to give 4.5 stars. Antrobus's work addresses his biracial identity and issues surround deafness and disability, especially as the latter interact with policing and prisons. He adopts an idea from Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim, "closer captioning" emotion or the emotion behind sounds and speech rather than the words themselves.
June 24, 2022
I’m being annoying rn because I’m binging some poetry collections but I am giving this an automatic five star because the first poem has me floored. This collection and The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus have got me fucked up. AAAAAAAAAH NO FUCK MY I JUST REALIZED THEY ARE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON. GOOD BYE I AM IDIOT GOOD BYE -RAYMOND YOUVE GOT ME IN A CHOKE HOLD RN.
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