Earlier than Whiteness (Metropolis Lights, Highlight No. 21, April 2022) is described as “A searing indictment of anti-Black social and political violence by British Jamaican poet and main scholar of Afro-pessimism D.S. Marriott.”
A guide that turns Blackness right into a query of studying, of inscribing and decoding Blackness in poetry, Earlier than Whiteness ranges from medieval Beowulf to up to date UK grime. Born in Britain however now residing within the U.S., D.S. Marriott trains his analytical gaze on grim American topics just like the Center Passage and lynchings, but additionally finds inspiration in African American poets and artists. The guide ends with “One other Burning,” a mournful elegy for the victims of the 2017 Grenfell Tower hearth in London and stirring rebuke of the structural racism of up to date UK society.
Frank B. Wilderson III (creator of Afropessimism) writes, “In Earlier than Whiteness, Marriott inhabits the names we bear in mind, comparable to Lester Younger and Dambudzo Marechera, and victims of the Grenfell Tower hearth, names we by no means knew. All of them individuals who don’t have any place on the desk the place the Human household feasts. ‘Blackness /’ Marriott reminds us, ‘wasn’t within the language–we noticed it / being evacuated / however we nonetheless inhabited / the ashes.’ These should not poems for the faint of coronary heart, or these in want of denouncements. However with the evocative language of a wordsmith and the fearless insights of a thinker, these poems information us by means of the inside lifetime of social loss of life.”
John Wilkinson (creator of My Reef My Manifest Array and Lyric in Its Instances) says, “The mature poetry of the British-Caribbean poet D. S. Marriott is usually possessed by an impressive full-throatedness, however Earlier than Whiteness makes audible his extra intimate tone, the sound of an approachable vulnerability. Earlier than whiteness comes infancy, a time earlier than language and the impingement of the white world, however this writing additionally stands within the face of whiteness, can stand in opposition to whiteness. Its phrases could also be positioned on white floor, the lengthy historical past of English verse, but in addition are hauled from a dense Black report of struggling, resistance and pleasure. … Solely an incredible poet’s writing could be directly so wealthy with echoes, so exacting in its thought, and so emotionally open.”
D.S. Marriott: Poet and scholar D.S. Marriott was born in Nottingham and educated on the College of Sussex, UK. He’s the creator of the poetry collections Incognegro (Salt, 2006), Hoodoo Voodoo (Shearsman, 2008), The Bloods (Shearsman, 2011), and Duppies (Commune Editions, 2019). His chapbooks embody In Neuter (Equipage, 2012) and Lative (Equipage, 1992). His work is usually related to the Cambridge faculty of poetry. In his important and artistic work, Marriott, of Jamaican heritage, attracts on postcolonial thought and thinkers comparable to Frantz Fanon and is a number one theorist of Afro-pessimism. His important books embody On Black Males (Edinburgh College Press and Columbia College Press, 2000), Haunted Life (Rutgers College Press, 2007), and Whither Fanon? Research within the Blackness of Being (Stanford College Press, 2018). He has taught at many universities and is at present primarily based in Oakland, CA.
For extra info, see https://citylights.com/general-poetry/before-whiteness/