#Victoria Adukwei Bulley

[shy-girl04]

Photographer - Noell Oszvald

Girl

my sweet girl.

(break)

will you write to me, years from today, when you no longer are what you are now? i’d like to know what you’ll be.

(break)

call me when you find out.

(break)

i’ll be here.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#poetry #words #girl #victoria adukwei bulley #woman #noell oszvald #black and white

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

& it maybe useful at this stage to know that you owe no grand goodbyes; that the simplicity of your leaving is resounding enough.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry #poem #poetry #poems #poet #poets #anthology #tumblr poetry #poem of the day #poetry blog #Victoria Adukwei Bulley #note on exiting #leaving #goodbye #poetry excerpt #poetry quotes #my poems #poemsdaily

[ijustkindalikebooks]

From Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley.

(Faber & Faber).

#booklr #books #bookblr #non fiction #poetry #poet #poetess #victoria adukwei bulley #quiet #poetry collection #faber

[mendingmusic]

Victoria Adukwei Bulley reads 'The Ultra-Black Fish'

"Victoria reads 'The Ultra-Black Fish' from her shortlisted collection 'Quiet', published by Faber and Faber."

#Victoria Adukwei Bulley #The Ultra-Black Fish #Quiet #Faber and Faber #poetry #Youtube

[aaknopf]

A Valentine from our house to yours: lines from a poem by Victoria Adukwei Bulley, a British poet nominated for both the T.S. Eliot and Rathbones/Folio Prize for her debut collection, Quiet, which has just arrived on our shores. This excerpt, the first section of her poem "Of the Snail & its Loveliness," reminds us that the shared appreciation of beauty is one of the deepest forms of love.

from Of the Snail & its Loveliness

              Once, I saw a snail so small so young its shell was still                transparent.

              I stopped to look—I had the time to see a thing unseen before—                a tiny flute

a ghost of white that swayed               within the sleeping shell, marking time so faithfully.

                            Little snail,               you’ll never know what happened outside as you dreamed.

                I watched your small heart’s beating                               & called my love                 to come & see.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Victoria Adukwei Bulley's Quiet.

Tune in on Tuesday, February 28 to celebrate Victoria’s publication day, as she reads along with Natalie Diaz and Safiya Sinclair, at a virtual event hosted by McNally Jackson.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf Poetry newsletter series.

Share the Knopf poetry newsletter with friends in anticipation of our daily poetry-month selections, coming to your inbox starting on April 1.

#BulleyAudio #KnopfPoetry #Valentine's Day #Quiet #Victoria Adukwei Bulley

[noodledesk]

Nothing was said, however, about how ultra-black fish find & enter into relations with each other. Nonetheless, their existence alone is evidence that, invisible as they may be to others, they are by no means strangers to themselves.

The Ultra-Black Fish, Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#poetry #victoria adukwei bulley #words #lit #quotes #morningread #gorgeous poems...

[dk-thrive]

not quiet as in quiet but

not quiet as in quiet but [...] as in placid / as in placated / as in nuanced / complicated /… as in careful it’s a conflict, not a siege, a conflict / as in objective / as in both sides / as in well behaved / as in safe / as in too quiet / as in almost silent / as in almost no sirens /

~ Victoria Adukwei Bulley, from “not quiet as in quiet but” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2022)  (via Last Tambourine)

#Victoria Adukwei Bulley #quiet

[inhernature]

The Ultra-Black Fish

Two hundred metres down, the light stops. Many deep-sea creatures alive at this level of the ocean have developed the ability to create light for themselves. This is known as bioluminescence. Others, on the contrary, contribute to the darkness by adding themselves to it. Ultra-black fish are one example, & in 2020 sixteen varieties of these were discovered captured. The level of pigment in their skin was so high that it was found to absorb 99.956% of the light that touched it. Karen, a marine biologist, made the discovery came across them by accident. Instead of hauling up the deep-sea crabs she had been searching for, her net produced a fang-toothed fish that wouldn’t show up in a photograph. Held, later, in a tank under two strobe lights, the fish became a living black hole, with no discernable features beyond the opacity of its silhouette. As though it had cut itself out of the image & left. Scientists believe that the fish developed their invisibility to aid them in escaping their predators. Another theory suggests that the obscurity of ultra-black fish enables them to more successfully catch their prey. It is likely that both ideas are true. Commentators on their discovery have also speculated that the chemical structure of the pigment could serve the development of military & defence technologies. Nothing was said, however, about how ultra-black fish find & enter into relations with each other. Nonetheless, their existence alone is evidence that, invisible as they may be to others, they are by no means strangers to themselves.

#ultra black fish #victoria adukwei bulley #quiet #poetry #black and white #nature

[biglisbonnews]

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in March Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the commentsIn this series we ask authors, Guardian writers and readers to share what they have been reading recently. This month, recommendations include a searing poetry collection, a brilliant history of dancefloors and unputdownable novels. Tell us in the comments what you have been reading.*** Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/31/what-were-reading-writers-and-readers-on-the-books-they-enjoyed-in-march

#Books #Culture #Fiction #Poetry #History books #Autobiography and memoir #Eleanor Catton #Victoria Adukwei Bulley #Safi Bugel and Guardian readers #Culture | The Guardian

[last-tambourine]

“not quiet as in quiet but”

... as in placid /

as in placated /

as in nuanced / complicated /...

~ Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#Victoria Adukwei Bulley #word #words #layers #meaning #quiet

[nitrosplicer]

17th c. posy ring bearing the inscription, “I long to have but blush to crave” / “There You Are” by Victoria Adukwei Bulley / “The Passionate Shepherd To His Love” by Christopher Marlowe / “Quest” by Franz Wright / “For M” by Mikko Harvey / “The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs” by George MacDonald / Posy ring with stars in relief, inscribed: “Many are thee starrs I see yet in my eye no starr like thee,” England, 17th-18th century.

#home #poetry #web weaving #florilegium #love #posy rings #bf tag

[shy-girl04]

Amber Ortolana

Whose Name Means Honey

You are beautiful to me.

You are beautiful to me

across the table we have arrived at,

in from the rain; no make-up on your face

but for the small frail thread

of something on your right cheek

that I would like to remove for you,

you whose name

means 'honey'. Every time

you look up

& still it is there, I would like

to be the one who says 'hold on,

come here, let me, one minute, stay there,

almost, there we go, all done, perfect'. & when

you look up & now it is gone, swept

absent-mindedly off the face of the earth

by your dark hair, oh I am sad

to have missed my chance

By Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#poetry #words #honey #victoria adukwei bulley #woman #black and white

[alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry]

& it may be useful at this stage to know that you owe no grand goodbyes; that the simplicity of your leaving is resounding enough. with this action you affirm your wherewithal to exist outside of the way-things-are. this is not something that is easy to do.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

#alliwanttodoiscollectpoetry #poem #poetry #poems #poet #poets #anthology #tumblr poetry #poem of the day #poetry blog #Victoria Adukwei Bulley #quiet #note on exiting #note on leaving #leaving #poemsdaily #poetry corner #literature #book worm #resistance #poems and quotes #poems on life #poems on tumblr #poetblr #poetryisnotdead #poetry on tumblr #love poetry #poetic

[thodi]

JANUARY ‘24 READINGS

Energetic Aliens • prose

A Place to Stay, Untouched by Death • prose

“Let Movies Be Movies” Begs the Question - What Are Movies? • prose

Murmurations • video

To catch a catfish • prose

switching to a "dumb" phone made me feel pretty dang smart • prose

Tokyo Walk, TBOT Cover, Aloneness - Notes on aloneness vs. solitude • prose

Cat Singing Blues • video

Victoria Adukwei Bulley's "There You Are" • poetry, prose

What I want to say most • prose

What Kind Of Future Does De-Extinction Promise? • prose

How it Feels to Brainstorm • comic

A Work of Love • prose

“Intimacy in the Telling”: A Conversation with Maggie Smith • prose

Damages • prose

The Year in Authenticity • prose

Ahead of Time • prose, poetry

The Thing That Is Silence • prose

Hungry For Education • prose

On Beauty and Violence • prose

Mary Oliver's "Some Questions You Might Ask" • poetry, prose

We are different from all other humans in history • prose

Don't Forget to Write • prose

Your Brain on Books: You Are What You Read • prose

In Proportion • comic

subscribe to The Good Side of the Internet for monthly recs like this, and to thodi for weekly poetry and song recommendations plus a sometimes-nonsensical-sometimes-profound-sometimes-toopersonal article <3

tag list (reach out if you want to be tagged on these!) - @then-child-make-another @quesadillayuri

#january #words #art #reading recommendations #essay recommendations #reading list #j.recs #photography #nature #architecture #prose #narrative #essay #to be read #death #grief #music #personal #poetry #substack #investigative #essay recommendation #history #film #science #biology #maggie smith

[ijustkindalikebooks]

March, Spring, is finally here.

I have missed actual sunshine, I felt heat from the sky the other day for the first time in months and I think my dopamine returned, I was just like yes, finally, natural light.

This month I have have read 38 books, including some books I actually viscerally hated, but also books I loved, with the highest amount of five stars of the year so far being read this month.

here are some short reviews of those books!

Reading Lessons by Carole Atherton - You can find my review of this book on the blog, so I won't go over it too much, but this book includes short essays and memoirs of different books read in school. Insightful, interesting and nostlagic, this book certainly gave me new perspective on books I loved in school and ones I didn't know so much - I particularly appreciated the essay on 'An Inspector Calls' one of my favourites reads from my time in school.

Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley - A fantastic collection of poems about indentiy and love, Quiet explores different themes and styles to deliver a poetry book that is hard ro forget. I highly recommedn this collection, it really leaves with something to think about.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - A book I've heard alot of hype about recently, I did worry it wouldn't live up to it, but boy does it. The story of Amina as she returns to the sea after a decade to recover the granddaughter of one of her former crew, 'The Adventures..' is beautifully written with characters that make you feel like you know them, you are invested from the very beginning. Intense, and brilliant - I can't wait for the rest of the trilogy.

Blue Exorcist Vol. 7 by Kazue Kato - The story of a young man going to an exorcist school while being the son of Satan himself, Blue Exorcist does get better and better as it goes on. It's hard to talk about what's been going on as it's very spoilery, but this story arc is brilliant and I can't wait to see how this story ties up.

The Apothecary Diaries Vol. 1 by Nekokurage - based on the light novels by Natsu Hyuuga, The Apothecary Diaries tells the story of the arrival and the promotion of Maomao as she works her magic in the court of the emperor making aphrodisiacs and figuring out why the emperor's children are dying. A fantastic first volume, I'm waiting for the second one at my library already.

What have you been reading in March? What would you recommend me based on these books? I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading!

Vee xo

#booklr #books #fiction #bookblr #book #book review #book reviews #manga #fantasy

[aaknopf]

art by Min Goto

The fourth section of Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s award-winning debut collection, Quiet, comes with epigraphs from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison. The Morrison line especially suggests the plucky solitude that simmers beneath Bulley’s work: “Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me.” Yet one of the pleasures of the book is that the poet steps out of the solo self to write about other people—about their salutary presence in the mind or in a particular place, about the texture of a friendship.      

Stephanie 

I walked past your house today on the way to mine

I thought I might stop by again & we could talk a little or too long

until late preferably until my phone rings—

somebody was in your porch calling to someone else inside

who was maybe your mother, your sister or even yourself

& I thought about stopping by but it wasn’t your mother’s car

in the drive & no it wasn’t your house anymore.

We would walk to the park at night-time. I would tell you to quit your job.

What is a friend but someone to sit with

on the swings out in the darkness.

. .

More on this book and author: 

Learn more about Quiet by Victoria Adukwei Bulley.

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

#poetrybroadside #poetrybroadsides #bulleyaudio #stephanie #quiet #victoria adukwei bulley #knopf poetry #knopfpoetry #poem-a-day #national poetry month #broadside #art