Sonnets for Albert: Winner of the T S Eliot Prize 2022

A linked collection of poems that follows memory, absence, and family time from the perspective of a son who has lost his father. Its forward motion recalls calypso rhythms, while love and loss remain tightly intertwined.

father-son relationshiploss and memoryCaribbean rhythmlove and mourning

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Work Information

A linked sequence that quietly brings the outline of a lost father back through memory and language.

Anthony Joseph's Sonnets for Albert reconsiders fatherhood through absence and memory, layering family photographs and fragmentary recollections into a searching portrait of a father. The poems carry a Caribbean musicality and carefully trace not only grief but also the forms of intimacy and love that are inherited.

Review Summaries

It is praised for gathering fragments of memory around a father's absence and finding the persistence of love within loss. Its circular structure and musical rhythm lift a personal story into a wider, more universal reading experience.

Book Information

Publisher: Bloomsbury Poetry
Published: 2022-06-09
Pages: 112 pages
Language: 英語
Size: 12.8 x 1.2 x 19.6 cm
ISBN-13: 9781526649942
ISBN-10: 1526649942
Price: 2716 JPY
Category: 洋書/Literature & Fiction

**WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022** **LONGLISTED FOR THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE 2023** With Sonnets for Albert , Anthony Joseph returns to the autobiographical material explored in his earlier collection Bird Head Son . In this follow-up, he weighs the impact of being the son of an absent, or mostly absent, father, Though these poems threaten to break under the weight of their emotions, they are always masterfully poised as the stylish man they depict.

Anthony Joseph is a Trinidad-born poet, novelist, academic and musician. His 2022 collection Sonnets for Albert was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry and the OCM BOCAS Prize for Poetry. He is the author of four poetry collections and three novels. His 2018 novel Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award and the OCM Bocas Prize for Fiction. In 2019, he was awarded a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship. As a musician, he has released nine critically acclaimed albums, and in 2020 received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composers Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kings College, London.

Reviews

Wasting faith on one's father.

I love the subversive play on sonnets. Albert is brilliant and his use of language is both enthralling and candid. I was particular by how he captures every moment of his father's shadows and essence. The bravery of sifting through occurrences that could nip a man to the wilting spire of concupiscence, and yet strutting out from the archway of compassion. How he curtails the urge to be brash for the eccentricities of a man that could be running from his own shadow, with grace. Even when he knew his brother could be wasting his faith on the man; he probably was still awash and dazed with his figure and what he is suppose to represent. This book is a successful manoeuvre of the book title to deliver a stellar narrative in a poignant and ingenious style. The cadence of the work was of propulsion and the splash of waters against wet rocks. Albert is actually in a class of his own; bending words to arrest his musings. It is a sweet read. It is a candid read; quite furtive and personalized.
Quick delivery, excellent condition

Quick delivery, excellent condition. Personal note included. Would definitely use again.
Fine

This was fine and nothing more, really. I'm never a fan of photographs being included with a poetry collection. It's a bit Brooklyn Beckham and rarely adds much more than a good front cover or dust jacket gives you. As for the poems, I believe these were conceived (having watched Joseph's T.S. Eliot interviews) as a crown of sonnets in closed form. I actually think the choice to almost completely abandon this approach represents a lost opportunity. By choosing to write - what might we call them? - free-verse sonnets, I think the poems lose discipline rather than provide space for the writer's father's personality. It may have been more interesting to write within the constraints of closed sonnets to mirror the confining nature of memory... just a thought.