#zong!

[quotation--marks]

                             facts own their lives in circumstance                          & happening                                     in trial & declaration                                     in the absolute of rule              & lord  in the absolute                                           of water

M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong!

[walrusmagazine]

Why This Poet Declared War on Her Own Book

When M. NourbeSe Philip’s work on a slave ship massacre was translated without her consent, she didn’t recognize it anymore. Who ultimately owns the stories we tell?

The translator’s presence in Zong!, though, was not quite the object of Philip’s distress; Philip is not a Nabokovian purist. Translators have worked on her books before, with her approval. The problem was of another nature. Among the myriad reasons Zong! has become such a widely studied work are its disjunctive, distinctive visual qualities—a kinetic form charged with spiritual intent. The poetry sweeps across 180 pages in the manner of vocal jazz or a disordered musical constellation. As if carried off by waves, words float away from each other, swirl around, casting off letters like articles of clothing; syllables gurgle or stutter, refuse meaning. Isolated phrases, seemingly at random, tilt into cursive or italics. Submerged at the bottom of each page are imagined African names for the drowned, whose deaths were originally recorded as “negroe man” or “negroe woman.”

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

Illustration by Stephanie Singleton (stephaniesingleton.com)

[bbygirlripsbongs]

Happy 4/20 to all, I hope everyone is or will be happily lit!

[blackskintrillmask]

M. NourbeSe Philip, “Notanda” (from Zong!)

[endlessandrea]

"The ones I like best are those where the poem escapes the net of complete understanding —where the the poem is shot through with glimmers of meaning."

M. NourbeSe Philip: Zong!

[bbygirlripsbongs]

I had to go to work so I haven’t taken totally awesome photos yet but I just had to show you all that it has arrived and it is more beautiful in person and more beautiful than I ever had imagined!

I did smoke a bowl from it before work and it hits like air! I hit it 3 times, didn’t even finish the bowl. Was too stoned to take a dab even before work. 🙌🏻👌🏻

Don't mind my mess of a room, gotta clean!

[bbygirlripsbongs]

"Is it raining where you are?" was the only thing I could think to ask.

[largemuscle69]

BOOK 21: Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip

I was first introduced to this book my freshman year of undergrad when I took a class on Black contemporary experimental poetry. I credit this book for being the first time I was truly floored by poetry. We only covered a few excerpts from the book, so now years later I am glad to have finally gotten around to reading the whole thing. Holy shit. The story of Zong! is, as the poet describes it, an un-story that resists telling but must be told. Zong was a slave ship that ended up being the subject of a court case, since the white crew decided to throw 150 captive Africans off the ship to collect insurance money. The case is briefly worded, and centers entirely on whether or not the insurance should pay for the loss of “property”. Philip uses the text of this short case exclusively to construct these poems and tell the story of these humans who have been pushed to the margins and their story completely silenced. As she writes in the notes at the end of the book, the act of breaking apart the court case and letting the true story come through results in poems that resist understanding but at the same time forces the reader to continue to search for meaning and make sense from murmurings. I have no good way to describe the raw feelings that surface reading this book and experiencing this poem for the first time. The structure of the poems in each of the five sections are arresting in their own way, and are a true master class in what skilled use of form can look like. I can say is that this is probably the most impactful poetry I have ever read, in every sense of the word. Highly recommend.