Hull

by Xandria Phillips

This first collection by African American poet Xandria Phillips explores the present-day emotional impacts of enslavement and colonization on the Black queer body in urban, rural, and international settings. HULL is lyrical, layered, history-ridden, experimental, textured, grounded in prose poems, adorned, ecstatic, and emotionally investigative.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Queer, African American, School, Queer Lit, Transgender

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Xandria is a nonbinary black poet who writes poems. Some exploring desire, specifically looking at known people (a Michelle Obama fantasy?). I liked the cheeky shape poems and those that look back at their experiences, like Poem Where I Refuse to Talk About -----"

[Adina · Rating 4 out of 5]

My skin is night-water black where
your shadow falls over me. The commute
to bondage was sickening. You see these dead
limbs? You see these pearls? Everything I need
is in another hemisphere. Everyone I love is here.

Favorites:
I Never Used to Write About Birds
Poem Where I Refuse to Talk About []
Social Death, an Address
They Want Black Music and They Don’t Want Black People
Captivity Lessons
Intimate Archives
Hull
Edmonia Lewis and I Weather the Storm

[Michelle | musingsbymichelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great use of space and I really enjoyed the references to historical medical atrocities against Black bodies— the poet uses these in unexpected ways.

[literaryelise · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I want the sweat of boyhood its ease and virtue on my neck I want my nature known because I am the softest I can ever be in this moment”

[Luke Sheppard · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poetry books I've read to date. Fantastic work depicting through poetry the current and historic realities for black people in America.

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two short passages from Hull:


*


I am all but
a plunging flourish of starlings
saturating the sky above in disquiet
through a partition made of circumstance.


*


but a sapling myself
I am made everyday like a bed
like a person makes another
and nothing ever asks to be made


*

[zaynab · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend recommended Hull to me. I went to Women and Children First, pulled Hull off the shelf, sat on a bench and started reading. From the first poem I was not only hooked but deeply intrigued. I wanted to know what would unfold. I bought it, took it home, and read it in the bathtub. There's something that felt necessary about reading this work submerged in water. There were poems that amused me- the image of Xandria doing laundry next to Sara Baartman. There were lines that took my breath away, completely surreal in their tenor and delivery. There were pages that brought me to complete silent- grateful, contemplative silence.

I finished it an hour later and felt as though it warranted another read. I will probably re-read it again and again just to play with the different forms that are presented throughout the book that work in as many ways as the eyes can see fit.

Of the poetry books that I've read in 2019, Xandria Phillip's Hull ranks highly on my list of books that captivate and invigorate the collective imagination.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The nonbinary poet’s collection employs the language of dreams and fraught journeys, laying bare the historical and current threats to black and queer bodies. These free verse poems are rich with alliteration (“the brine of our brutish blood”) and innovative in their layouts. Amid the often melancholy subject matter come cheeky entries, like a sex dream about Michelle Obama. In the tradition of Natasha Trethewey and Danez Smith, Phillips sees a through line from slavery to racism past and present. Hull is their bold indictment of prejudice. Release date: September 24th.

See my full review at Foreword.

[Cedric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read each of these at least twice as I did and see if this you don't get something new out of that second look-perhaps that seems like too much work, but reading a lot of poetry (and the Bible frankly) has taught me there's reward in it. Such range here-Michelle Obama, exploration of queer idenity, Edmonia Lewis (lost an hour in a deep dive), the horrors of the Middle Passage, Vester Flanagan (another deep dive-didn't know all the details), vibrators...


from "Intimate Archives" (this section centers on selected examples of black trauma from enslavement to the present; "war on drugs," "monticello," and "Dr. J Marion Sims' Hospital For Women" in succession are the most powerful juxtaposition of poems in the book:)

...

Monticello
outside our bed, everything was kissing
or biting you in the name of disgust, in
the name of labor, in the name of flesh 
breaking, and babies being born 

the man never did smile in his portraits, 
but by the pitch of your cries, by the perse
abrasions on your throat, Sally, I knew 
he had a set of teeth. 

------

Later, on one of Mr. Sims' victims:

ANARCHA AND I NEGOTIATE TRAUMA
 
Anarcha passed me hers by her teeth and I nearly choked in the making of space for her mammoth seed alongside mine. I trusted her with a mouth too full to speak. I trusted her to slide something flora inside of me. The first time I felt another person’s desire it was pressed on my leg and this leg was pinned to the couch. In so wanting to tell this, I pitted my mouth twice. There was meat initially on the peaches that we halved off and fed to each other making sure to miss the mouth enough for the lips and neighboring skin to get sweet and slick. Anarcha had impassioned arguments with me, that brought me to trembling. I never wanted to nutcracker someone’s head with my thighs so badly. She told me the children knocked the latch off her bladder when they came into this world. She told me her body was living, when it was hewn for science, but she wanted to be taken with and by me. Around the pits, I said, I am a poet and a queer and I cannot real-estate a bit more of my tongue to doctors or men. And with this heavy mouth, I spouted these words in whale song. Inaudible. Why don’t you spit those out, she said, so I can hear the yes that’s under all that seed?
---------
Highly recommended and not just to people who like poetry; further, if you're timid about verse, at only 58 pages, it's not a heavy lift. You can fully expect this one to make some best of lists by end of year-it is that moving, that deftly crafted, that good.

[Babie Fats · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautifully written. I had to work through poems, pause with certain turns of phrase and reread with different eyes. I devoured it in one sitting and marked poems I needed to with with later. I caught myself writing down several turns of phrase that had me stopping and mouthing "wow" silently to myself.

The collection itself is a testament to the body. The poems are grounded in humanness and whipped with white dominant structures. Between the lines the reader is thrust through intimacy, queerness, pain, love, sex, and solidity. Recurring formatting of poems added narrative and the result was devastating.

The only reason this was not a 5/5 for me is due solely to relatability. I felt every poem and I heard the author, but I myself was not apart of the situation. There is so much to say for a collection of poetry that sings to your own heart. While this one was beautiful and perfectly written, it was not my Cinderella experience.

[Becky Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s another one I’ve had sitting on my shelf for a while. Phillips is a Black queer poet whose work examines what it’s like for someone like them to move through a historically white-dominated world. Many of their poems are fairly sparse, but they refer to specific historical events and commentate on them with just a few choice words arranged carefully. For example, several poems begin with “we” speakers, and then as time moves forward throughout the poem, an “I” speaker slowly emerges. This collection made me use my whole brain, turning each piece over and over—always a good thing.

Please note that this review was originally published on my blog.

[Beth]

I appreciated reading the poetry of a person of color who is non-binary and liked the poetry collection. There were some pieces like the one below which blew me away. However, I think a good number of the poems relied too much on the layout and less on the content.

They Want Black Music and They Don't Want Black People

like to parse mirth from flesh
play us to drown out the meek
sounds of their lovemaking
this is how they worship
pent until welling
my wife's song
on their wife's tongue
the mouth is
a most hated negro
attribute and
somehow it
births
a coveted forte
so searing
their eyes hang
a heavy velvet ribbon
over the keyhole

[Meaghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Xandria Phillips's collection of poems was very interesting and creative. Their use of different formatting with shapes and spacing was very cool and different: they're definitely a visual poet as will as a lyrical one!
.
I loved some of the poems, others I had to read a couple of times, and some I had to do research to fully understand. There is so much to unpack! I am glad I read this: not only did I get a view into the trauma of Black history, but I also got an intimate look into the queer Black space as well.
.
**This is a great book to look into to diversify your reading list!**

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read the book. This collection of poems is almost physical in the reading. The cadences vary wildly and to good effect. The poems speak to this moment and to the human razor sharp edges of living. The author is entirely in the body and in the world and in the mind and spirit. It shows the way all these things work together to make sense of a world that is overflowing with information but not with wisdom.

[Murat Yılmaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry in a cleverly organized, visual technique that adds to the grand mystery that lies behind every carefully selected word. I won’t lie, the format sometimes doesn’t even make sense to me, but even when it’s chaotic, it’s beautiful to look at. I read every poem twice, once out loud and there’s just something to it; it’s so melodic. It’s beautifully complex and mysterious at the same time.

[Melina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, something I needed came to me just at the right time. As Carmen Maria Machado said, "I didn't know how badly I needed these poems until they were unfurling in my hands, devastating and brilliant."

[Angela Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is beautiful and fraught and wistful and fed up. I especially loved the poems that explicitly spoke to historical figures - though the whole book speaks to history - and those that speak to desire, especially Want Could Kill Me.

[Zuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

My faves: Social death an address, Captivity lessons, Intimate archives, Edmonia Lewis and I weather the storm, Nature poem with compulsive attraction to the shark, The master’s tools, Stress dream in the key of Prozac, Sometimes boyhood

[Coby English · Rating 5 out of 5]

A spectacular poetry collection with amazing pieces of history

[Rachel Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a poetry collection you have to read in the physical, printed form. Phillips does some really interesting things with shape and form on the page which added layers to my understanding of the poems.
The collection covers so many interesting ideas around faith, gender and race and is one that should be read multiple times. Read the poems more than once, read them aloud, read them out of order however you choose to do it, you will be rewarded by reading these poems from a promising young poet.

[Sidney Amos · Rating 5 out of 5]

haven’t felt this way about some poetry since my first read of siken or anne carson - dayum

[Jessika]

Ebook is probably not the best format to read this book, as many of the poems have some kind of visual element to them. Best enjoyed slowly, with frequent side quests to tease out all the layers.

[Mike]

Kind of a mixed bag — some interesting forms (esp the Beloved one), a few good poems, some well-written imagery. Can’t say i was a huge fan of the Michele Obama sex stuff, but what do I know

[lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 -- did not personally connect, but very talented poet and beautiful poetry

[sheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

pure magic! i will never be the same again!

[Emily]

"promise me that // should I drown / in want-made waste // the dress I sink in / will be exquisite"

[ellaina]

“Vester Flanagan and I Escape Virginia” may be considered controversial by some, but it does exactly what a poem is meant to do—in the highest sense.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable, dreamy collection.

[OK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need to return to/reread