Raymond Antrobus is one of the most powerful contemporary voices in poetry, known for blending personal identity, silence, and sound into deeply moving work. As a Deaf British-Jamaican poet, his writing often explores what it means to live between worlds—hearing and non-hearing, Black and British, spoken and unspoken.
His award-winning collection The Perseverance brought him wide recognition, including the prestigious Ted Hughes Award. In this collection, Antrobus reflects on memory, masculinity, race, and especially Deaf identity, turning silence into something expressive rather than empty.
What makes his poetry unique is how he treats language—not just as sound, but as experience. He writes about miscommunication, isolation, and the beauty of alternative ways of understanding the world. His poems often feel intimate and raw, yet they carry a strong social message.
Antrobus is also connected to the performance poetry scene and has roots in spoken word, which gives his writing a rhythmic, almost musical quality—even when discussing silence. His work invites readers to rethink how we listen, communicate, and connect with others.
In short, Raymond Antrobus’s poetry is about identity, resilience, and finding voice in silence—making the invisible visible through words.
The Acceptance
Dad’s house stands again, four years
after being demolished. I walk in.
He lies in bed, licks his rolling paper,
and when I ask Where have you been?
We buried you, he says I know,
I know. I lean into his smoke, tell him
I went back to Jamaica. I met your brothers,
losing you made me need them. He says
something I don’t hear. What? Moving lips,
no sound. I shake my head. He frowns.
Disappears. I wake in the hotel room,
heart drumming. I get up slowly, the floor
is wet. I wade into the bathroom,
my father stands by the sink, all the taps
running. He laughs and takes
my hand, squeezes.
His ring digs into my flesh. I open my eyes.
I’m by a river, a shimmering sheet
of green marble. Red ants crawl up
an oak tree’s flaking bark. My hands
are cold mud. I follow the tall grass
by the riverbank, the song. My Orisha,
Oshun in gold bracelets and earrings, scrubs
her yellow dress in the river. I wave, Hey!
She keeps singing. The dress turns the river
gold and there’s my father surfacing.
He holds a white and green drum. I watch him
climb out of the water, drip toward Oshun.
They embrace. My father beats his drum.
With shining hands, she signs: Welcome.
My father beats his drum.
Funny that my mother was a clown
a college dropout who joined the circus
with another clown who made inflatable giants.
It's funny. His name was George,
a Marxist who swore he was serious
when he said the men who tried
to mow him down in a car one night
were sent by Thatcher, so he fled England
to hide while my mother pulled another
man at a Ska and Reggae night in Hackney
who was tall and afro'ed and swooned
her under the music.
I'm Seymour, he said, pointing
at his eyes, saying the more I see
the more I see, and she burped.
George (who was serious when he said
he didn't want children) came back
to England to find my mother
pregnant and he struck her in the face
but ended up staying in the same house
saying he's help raise the child,
but wasn't serious, he left
and my mother and Seymour,
who was my father, raised my sister and me.
Thirty years later my mother says she's
holding her head higher at seventy.
She never needed a man,
Of course I wonder where her taste
came from. Her own father was quiet,
detached and serious all his life,
reaching out his arms for God
while his children crawled at his feet.
Heartless Humour Blues
My mother says my father had a heartless sense of humour.
That winter she fell, ice on the road—
She can't forget her bruise, his laughter.
Not even his shadow helped her up or soothed her.
He watched from the kerb—boozy red-eyed Dad—
laughed when she said he had a heartless sense of humour.
I think that's how he handled pain, drink his only tutor.
Maybe laughter was the only thing he had?
No, my mother says, he had a heartless sense of humour.
In Hackney Downs, his past became my future,
walking drunk by filter beds, noticing how grass sags,
laughing at myself with my heartless sense of humour.
He'd tell some tragic story, then laugh, his jaw looser,
and if laughter won a round of drinks, be glad
of what can be bought with that heartless sense of humour
My mother tried again and the next man abused her—
another man with a drink and cigarettes to drag,
laughed with my father's heartless sense of humour.
When Tabitha said our cousin stabbed his father
I laughed, and she closed up, turned away, sour.
Ray, where did you get that heartless sense of humour?
And That
“Chicken wings / and that
Boss man / salt in them / and that
Don’t assault man / give man a nap-
Kin / Big man / no steroid / and that
Dark times / new street lights / and that
How’s man? / I’m getting by / and that
Still / boy dem / harass
Not beefin’ / not tagged / man / still trapped
Cycle man / I peddle / and that
On road / new pavements / leveled / and that
Crackney changed / still / stay dwelling / and that
Paradise moves / but I got to land grab
We E8 / East man / ain’t got to adapt
Our Kingdom / got no land to hand back
Man / chat breeze / chat
Trade winds / and that
You out ends / got good job / legit / and that?
Locked off man dem / stay plotting / and that
Rah, Ray / flower shorts? / You hipster / in that
Man gone / Vegan? / no chicken wings / and that”
