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

Description

**WINNER OF THE T S ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR POETRY 2022** 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 poet, musician and academic whose work explores the transnational vibrations of the African Diaspora. As well as several poetry collections, a slew of albums, and three novels, Joseph has published critical work exploring the aesthetics of Caribbean Poetry among other subjects. Sonnets for Albert is his first poetry collection since Rubber Orchestras in 2013.

After much silence and absence in life, the poet's father is painstakingly restored in death in a book-length "calypso sonnet" sequence ... Sonnets for Albert movingly makes peace with his shade * Guardian * A luminous collection which celebrates humanity in all its contradictions and breathes new life into this enduring form -- T S Eliot Prize for Poetry 2023 judges Praise for Anthony Joseph: "Possessing or possessed by requisite bearings, language and lore, Anthony Joseph is fully and beautifully up to the task -- Nathaniel Mackey An exceptional talent -- Blake Morrison