Signs, Music

SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S. ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE

âI became fatherless at 26 and a father
at 35 and whenever I look out

the living room window I feel myself
become the child left alone in the houseâ

Centred around two lyric poems on imminent fatherhood and the birth of a child, Signs, Music is a book about masculinity, fatherhood, and love. The speaker, looking backwards to his late father and forwards to his new son, prepares to become a parent for the first time. Meditating on the cognitive and emotional dissonances between the âhypotheticalâ and the ârealâ of becoming a father, this irreversible transition causes the poetâs âlines [to] lead towards my father (again!)â.

Charting the ways parenthood disrupts the poetâs sense of self, and how the pain of the past triggers fears of âfatherly failureâ, Signs, Music is a staggeringly profound collection from one of Britainâs most adept poets writing today.

''This is transformative writing creating a new cultural landscape. Antrobus makes us hear between the lines through poems well-crafted with emotional intelligence'' â" Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mark Oakley and Clare Shaw, judges of the 2018 Ted Hughes Prize.