Monster
Bloodaxe Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78037-726-1 (ISBN)
Other poems draw clear parallels with Benson’s own experience as a Black woman born in London but raised in Ghana who returned to the UK at the age of 18. The collection is an exciting mix of vivid lyricism, sometimes laced with dark humour, using complex poetry, monologue and theatrical devices. The influence of Shakespeare sits comfortably with references to Ewe mythology and history in a collection of wide scope and depth. This is a highly accomplished first collection by a mature voice. One of a small group of published Black women poets, Benson makes an important contribution to current British poetry with the publication of Monster.
Dzifa Benson was born in London to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. She is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work intersects science, art, technology, the body and ritual which she explores through poetry, prose, theatre, libretto, performance, curation, visual arts, immersive technologies, essays and criticism. She has read and performed her work in many contexts such as Tate Britain, the Dissenters Chapel of Kensal Green Cemetery, BBC Contains Strong Language, the Royal Festival Hall, King’s Place, and in Italy, South Africa, France and Norway. Her poetry has been most recently anthologised in Staying Human (Bloodaxe), More Fiya! (Canongate) and Part of a Story That Started Before Me (Penguin), and has been recognised with fellowships from Jerwood Compton Poetry and Hedgebrook. She was shortlisted for the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021. She publishes essays and criticism covering poetry, theatre, music, fiction and nonfiction in The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Wasafiri, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry London and The Poetry Review. Her first collection, Monster, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2024. Dzifa has had poetry, curatorial and editorial residences at Whitstable Biennale, Pallant House Gallery, Estuary Festival, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Orleans House Gallery, Wakehurst (Kew Gardens), the Royal Geographical Society and Granta. She has also guest lectured at Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of East London, University of West London, Brunel University, and studied dramaturgy at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. She is a poetry editor with Curtis Brown Creative. Her abridgement and adaption of the National Youth Theatre REP Company’s 2021 production of Othello, in collaboration with Olivier award-winning director Miranda Cromwell, toured the UK and she is currently in the pre-production, dramaturgical stage of her first full length play Black Mozart // White Chevalier. Dzifa has toured South Africa and the UK with the British Council, is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and holds a Masters degree in Text & Performance from RADA and Birkbeck.
I. Monster
13 Lacuna, with Landscape
14 Blues for Sarah
16 Exhibition of a Real Life Wonder (Still Alive!)
17 Som-|aub // Menarche
20 Lost & Found
22 In Which Comedian Charles Matthews, Actor Charles Kemble and Dandy Beau Brummell Question Miss Sara Baartman Before Her Evening Performance
26 From The Morning Chronicle, 12 October 1810 p.3
28 The Attorney General’s Submission to the King’s Bench
30 Miss Sarah Bartmann Recalls Her Lover, a Drummer from Batavia
32 Freak Sonnets for Lusus Naturae at Bartholomew Fair: Natural-Born, Man-Made and Counterfeit
36 Tongue
40 The Prime of Baron Georges Léopold Chrétien Cuvier Witnessed by the Recently Made Ghost of Mademoiselle Sarah Baartman
42 Scala Naturae // A Remix of Voltaire
43 Sestina for Six Scientists in Search of an Ology
45 A Psychological Study of Phenomena // A Remix of Ribot
46 Bottom Power
49 Mademoiselle Sarah Bartmann Performs in Duchess du Barry’s Salon of Wit and Wisdom
50 Bottom Power Redux // Augmented with Bustle (A Poem/Play)
54 How to Restore a Museum Artefact
55 1810–2002
58 Bone Fever Dream
60 Gemsbok Trance Song of the Girl Who Made the Stars Road
61 The Hottentot Venus Hails Botticelli’s on the High Seas
63 !Nau // A Bloodline of Inessential Contact with Water
II. Mɔse ƒe ye nye xɔme
78 Echolalia // A Broken Rule Ghazal
79 Ahanonko // ‘A Nameless Thing is a Vague Thing’
80 Ŋkɔfofodo // Moulding My Drinking Name
82 The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale
83 Venaviwo // Xi and Xetsa
85 Myself, When I Am Real
86 Dzonu // Fire Things: A Brief Genealogy of the XX Chromosomes
87 Futhawo // Rowing Song for Asie Me Tsia Dio ‘Young Boys’ Fishermen
89 Complaint to a Flamboyant
90 Viheheɖego // Self Portrait as a Creature of Numbers
III. After a Panoptic Ekphrasis
93 Three Colours Black
94 The Red Thread
95 In the Company of Trees
96 Foreign Matter
99 Broken Ghazal for Pink Sheen and Gravity
100 Call Me Balthazar
102 Black Dog Bone Blues
103 The $40,000 Pill
105 Coitus, Refracted
106 London Bone
IV. Addendum
111 The Yoctogram Weighs In
112 Here, This Bird
113 Little Wing
114 Truss
115 How to Wear Drama
116 Mountain Myths of the Orchid Lady’s Daughter
117 The Last Exorcist
119 How I Learned to Dance with the Octopus
120 I Told It to the Sea
125 Raft
127 Notes
132 Acknowledgements
| Erscheinungsdatum | 10.10.2024 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Tyne and Wear |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 234 mm |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte |
| ISBN-10 | 1-78037-726-6 / 1780377266 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-78037-726-1 / 9781780377261 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
aus dem Bereich
