Author:Caleb Femi
WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION
Chosen as a Book of the Year by New Statesman, Financial Times, Guardian, Observer, Rough Trade and the BBC
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize
'Restlessly inventive, brutally graceful, startlingly beautiful ... a landmark debut' Guardian
'Oh my God, he's just stirring me. Destroying me' Michaela Coel
'A poet of truth and rage, heartbreak and joy' Max Porter
'Takes us into new literary territory ... impressive' Bernardine Evaristo, New Statesman (Books of the Year)
'It's simply stunning. Every image is a revelation' Terrance Hayes
What is it like to grow up in a place where the same police officer who told your primary school class they were special stops and searches you at 13 because 'you fit the description of a man' - and where it is possible to walk two and a half miles through an estate of 1,444 homes without ever touching the ground?
In Poor, Caleb Femi combines poetry and original photography to explore the trials, tribulations, dreams and joys of young Black boys in twenty-first century Peckham. He contemplates the ways in which they are informed by the built environment of concrete walls and gentrifying neighbourhoods that form their stage, writes a coded, near-mythical history of the personalities and sagas of his South London youth, and pays tribute to the rappers and artists who spoke to their lives.
Above all, this is a tribute to the world that shaped a poet, and to the people forging difficult lives and finding magic within it. As Femi writes in one of the final poems of this book: 'I have never loved anything the way I love the endz.'
Takes us into new literary territory ... impressive
—— Bernardine Evaristo , New Statesman (Books of the Year)It's rare for a book of poems to repeatedly leave you breathless when reading it. Such is the urgent brilliance of Caleb Femi's Poor . . . Femi's language is restlessly inventive, unerring in uncovering images that lodge in your memory. His use of concrete as a recurring motif is brutally graceful, encapsulating this startlingly beautiful book, a landmark debut for British poetry
—— Rishi Dastidar , GuardianI am reading a powerful book of poetry by a young man, Caleb Femi. Oh my God, he has a book called Poor and he's just stirring me. Destroying me. I look up to him as a poet
—— Michaela CoelCaleb Femi is a gift to us all from the storytelling gods. He is a poet of truth and rage, heartbreak and joy. But above all, this is love poetry. Love of community, language, music and form. This book flows from the fabric of boyhood to the politics and architecture of agony, from the material to the spiritual, always moving, always real. Poor is the heartbeat of a living city which truly knows itself. Caleb is a mighty and positive force in UK culture and this is a vital book
—— Max Porter, author of LannyIn this fabulous debut, concrete becomes a paradox of toughness and vulnerability, confinement and shelter . . . Caleb Femi's riveting photographs and compassionate yet hard-hitting lines map North Peckham's black boys and blocks . . . His depictions of young black men possess a brother's empathy . . . It's simply stunning. Every image is a revelation
—— Terrance Hayes, author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future AssassinMesmerizing and transporting. I've never read a collection like this . . . I literally had to shake off the experience once I was finished. [This] incredible collection . . . gives voice to a London many would prefer to ignore . . . I don't think it possible for anyone to come away from this book without having developed new levels of empathy and compassion
—— Derek Owusu, author of That Reminds MeImpressive . . . At the heart of the collection is the poet's deconstruction of language, fusing biblical cadence with a contemporary street vernacular. There is something reminiscent of William Blake's visionary poetic in Femi's commitment to a realistic worship for places like Aylesbury Estate and North Peckham, as well as their communities . . . [recalls] Gwendolyn Brooks's and Nate Marshall's odes to Chicago . . . [Poor is] in conversation with Roger Robinson's and Jay Bernard's poems of witness and poetic gospel, which . . . create myths, legends, and folklore that render black bodies as holy
—— Malika Booker, author of Pepper SeedCaleb Femi's Poor bristles with the exhilarations and violences of boyhood and adolescence. In its interplay of image and text, of photographic image and poetic image, the book asks us to consider what is seen and unseen, spoken of and concealed; what is, in one of many numinous phrases, "proof of light". More than this, these are poems of witness, both noun and verb: poems of the self and what the self can bear
—— Stephen Sexton, author of If All the World and Love Were YoungGiving a mythic resonance to communal life, the poems in Caleb Femi's Poor are vital, confronting and electric. Political, spiritual, formally inventive and energized by a music of protest and grief, this is a rare and anthemic debut
—— Seán Hewitt, author of Tongues of FireAn urban romantic . . . powerful
—— Dazed & ConfusedCaleb's talent calls for a global stage
—— Virgil AblohThis is the book for you if you've ever been curious about the wonderful ideas and concepts underlying modern math, but been too frightened to make a start. Milo Beckman gives us a friendly introduction to unfamiliar concepts and ideas that show why modern math is such a fascinating and rewarding branch of human thought
—— Graham Farmelo, author of The Universe Speaks in NumbersMath Without Numbers offers an accessible and whimsically illustrated glimpse of what pure mathematicians study, all while capturing the playful spirit with which they do it
—— Grant Sanderson, creator of 3blue1brownPeterson is a deep thinker with tremendous powers of articulation and a captivating sense of wonder. A master storyteller, he draws on a multitude of sources, including his personal life, clinical practice and long marriage to enlighten readers about the fundamentals of human behavior and our civilization. Beyond Order is a call for action and self-improvement. It is a mind-blowing journey where the lessons learnt are lessons for life
—— The Jerusalem PostExplained with uncanny insight and lyrical grace
—— TimeA new vision, one with a remarkable power in delivering new answers to old quantum riddles. . . original and graceful
—— Jenann T. Ismael , TLSBracing and refreshing. . . Rovelli is offering a new way to understand not just the world but our place in it, too
—— NPRCarlo Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator. . . What I love about his writing is that it always comes back to people -- people interacting with other people, who are interacting with their world. This is the place where science comes to life
—— Neil GaimanWhen life feels strange, Rovelli's books remind me that there is beauty in the strangeness
—— Johny PittsRovelli is a brilliant and lucid teacher who uses his understanding of theoretical physics and the quantum world to talk about the complexity of our everyday reality
—— Russell BrandCarlo Rovelli's imaginative rigour, his lively humour and his beautiful writing are inspiring
Rovelli opens windows onto the imagination for all of us
—— Antony GormleyI always find with Carlo Rovelli's books that there are moments when you get a real hit of understanding -- a jigsaw in your mind that just falls into place
—— Robin InceHelgoland is a wonderful guide to the most extraordinary story in physics. It will reset your view of the universe
—— Marcus du SautoyHooked me so hard I read the entire book in one sitting. And then twice more
—— Lisa Feldman Barrett , Chronicle of Higher EducationThe old, solid world, if you believed in it at all, breaks into a glorious shimmer of limitless potential
—— Brian Morton , TabletRovelli has an uncanny knack for instilling wonder and explaining complex theories in plain, entertaining ways
—— Irish TimesI'm keen for everyone to read Helgoland: a wonderfully lucid and poetic account of the foundations of quantum physics. It combines a compelling history with Rovelli's own intriguing - and for me very appealing - views about the basis of all things
—— Anil Seth, author of Being You