Читать книгу She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks - M. NourbeSe Philip - Страница 8

FrwrdHe Tongue Ties She ( or How NourbeSe Philip Breaks English to Fit Her Mouth)Luck can play a great role — shockinglyso — in bringing someone to the poetry she wants, or even needs, to read.Someone, reading this volume, is having a very lucky day. Perhaps this person rst encountered M. NourbeSe Philip’s poetry in the powerful book Zong!, oundered in those quietly troubled waters for a time, in over her head, slowly learning that she was not entirely lost, that she could swim with Philip’s words, that she could breathe in the space be-tween them — that, in some sense, this poetry was her natural habitat.Perhaps this person is new to Philip’s work, as yet unaware of how the poet can takea word and hold it up to the light to see what it obscures, what it refracts, what it illuminates; can blow air into it tohear its song, its call, its howl; can crack it open; can use it to open us.Perhaps this person knows her luck, is a long-standing member of that unmarked body of Philip devotees, initially formed circa 1989, com-posed of those who, once dispossessed of their languages, have regained their voices under her poetic tutelage, who identify one another through the ritual exchange of alchemical (pass)words? She Tries Her Tongue (this reader whispers urgently,and I fervently reply), Her SilenceSoftly Breaks . . .I was introduced to Philip’s writing almost twenty years ago, in a course called New World African Literature (taught by the irrepressible black Canadian poet and scholar,George Elliott Clarke). In the context of James Baldwin’s eloquent social analysis, Dionne Brand’s politicized lyr-icism, Dany Laferrière’s playful provocations, and NtozakeShange’s de-antly vernacular self-determination, Philip’s prize-winning collection of poetry was both right at home and utterly unique. I remember being