5 Questions With Deaf Author Raymond Antrobus
Hi everyone. Times are bad, but books remain good. Summer books, in particular, are looking stellar, and in time of basically nonexistent reviews and media decline, I've been thinking about the best ways to highlight some of the great work out there.
I like the idea of mini-interviews, because they can give you a taste of the project and the person without fully clogging your inbox. I hope this will be the first of more! Either way, this month, I want to draw your attention to an incoming addition to the #DeafShelf--acclaimed author Raymond Antrobus's new memoir, The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound.
Raymond Antrobus is a British Jamaican poet, educator, and writer born in Hackney, London, to an English mother and Jamaican father. Diagnosed as deaf at age six, his work explores themes of sound, language, identity, and memory. He is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Signs, Music (2024), and the recipient of numerous literary awards and fellowships. https://raymondantrobus.com/
The Quiet Ear is out in the US next month, August 19th. You can pre-order it here.
Raymond and I know one another a little over the internet, but it was nice to take a few minutes to chat with him this past month. Without further ado--5 Questions:
1. Your poetry collection Signs, Music, speaks to some of the same topics as your upcoming memoir, like your experience of fatherhood. Can you say a bit about the difference between working in poetry versus writing long-form prose?
Interestingly, I wrote two of my poetry collections, All The Names Given and Signs, Music as I was writing The Quiet Ear; in fact writing those collections informed much of the journey of the prose book. I have been writing poetry since I was a child and writing it publicly since I was a teenager and I've said this before, but poetry is kind of my first language, meaning it is the most natural form for me to express myself in. I'm saying this to preface what I'm going to say next - Long form prose is a lot harder, having to hold the shape of the entire story you're weaving as well as the part that you're telling is one hell of a task!
I was not the best person to be around while I was writing and my therapy sessions got a lot more intense too. I was sometimes fully leaning into some of my trauma, I'm not sure I'll put myself through that again. Luckily, my agent and editors were on hand when I got fully stuck and they were able to assure me that I was telling the story I'd set out to tell.
2. Often I meet folks who assume signed language is universal, when (as you know) there are actually hundreds of signed languages and corresponding cultures across the world. I've always been kind of struck by the relatively big cultural and linguistic differences between ASL and BSL. Do you see things similarly? If so/not, why?
Yes, see this is the thing. The Quiet Ear isn't a book by a deafie for hearies, I think d/Deafies will also find much illuminated here about our culture, too. Last year I performed at The Guggenheim and translated one of my English poems into BSL, some comments online and in person were like "This isn't ASL...". It seemed a lot of ASL speakers thought that ASL is universal too. They hadn't seen BSL, didn't know anything about it.
A lot of wider stories around sign got edited out of the book. I had spent time in African and Caribbean countries and Islands (Trinidad, Sierra Leone) working in deaf schools and Deaf community spaces, and seeing their sign languages was another experience. As well as in Europe, Ukraine, Malta and recently in Ireland, where much of the Irish Sign Language is gendered because deaf schools are historically separated by sex, meaning at least two different versions of Irish Sign Language exist. But all that deeper nuance was outside the story in The Quiet Ear, which is my own story... I couldn't become a tourist in this book. I had to keep it native.
ID: cover of The Quiet Ear book, a beige background with black text and small photographs in circles partially obscured by color overlays.
3. What would your "perfect writing day" look like, in terms of routine, location, writing/other life balance, etc.? My perfect writing days are often accidental. I would've had a good nights sleep and managed to clear my mind of all the to-do lists, just to be present with a text, one I am reading and one I am writing. I would also have made time to go on a long walk and eat a hearty meal. I can get too heady when I write, I need some time to transition back into my family man self. It's all a balancing act.
4. The Quiet Ear's subtitle, "an investigation of missing sound" is befitting the introspective and often serious nature of the memoir. At the same time, in the deaf community we often also use the phrase, "deaf gain" to counter society's overall negative beliefs about hearing loss. Do you see deaf gain functioning in your life, either through being in-community with other deaf folks, existing in a liminal space (or more than one, often), or some other way?
Yes, the whole book, The Quiet Ear is a kind of Deaf Gain Super Saiyan mode (LOL). I have to shout out Meg Day, Meg brought me into the wider community of d/Deaf writers and poets in the US when they invited me to teach at their University, then years later they included me in their Deaf showcase at the Guggenheim in New York, both these experiences were profound, affirming. d/Deaf people have come a long way, we seem less interested in the divisions and policing who is "d/Deaf" enough, which is something I felt when I was younger about the Deaf community in the UK, but so much has changed and matured since then. I have felt much kinship with writers of many disabilities and neurodivergent conditions over the years, it is a privilege, a true gain for my life and work.
5. What's something you never get asked but really want to talk about?
I'd like to talk more about emotional literacy. That's what my Masters is in. It occupied my brain for years, it's what proved to me that believing in the power of creativity isn't some woke willy-nilly fluff, there's studies and data going back to the 50's that prove the transformational power of art, it really has saved some people from their demons and it continues to do so to this day. I feel like living proof (with the data to back it up).
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Me too, Raymond; me too. Actually, ICYMI, I recently wrote this essay for Writing Co-lab's 100 Days of Creative Resistance, about whether and how art can save us. There are also so many talented authors in that series; definitely worth clicking around.
ANYway--pre-order your copy of The Quiet Ear for your #DeafShelf. Trubiz, just click it now before you forget :)
And, if you're looking for more book recs by deaf authors, I've got 'em here and here.