A black British poet making her thrilling American debut explores the importance of “quiet” in producing forms of community, resistance, and love. “Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; [they] perfectly embody the political through the personal.”—Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other How does one encounter meaning amid so many kinds of noise? What is quiet when it isn’t silence? Where does quiet exist—and what liberating potential might it hold? These poems dwell on ideas of black interiority, intimacy, and selfhood, and they celebrate as fiercely as they mourn. With a metaphysical edge and a formal restlessness attuned to both the sonics and the inadequacies of language, Quiet navigates the tension between the impulse to guard one’s inner life and the knowledge that, as Audre Lorde writes, "your silence will not protect you." WINNER OF THE POLLARD INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE Named a Best Book of 2023 by the New York Public Library “This debut poetry collection is abundant with thoughtful storytelling. Each poem is ruminative and distills the intimacies of Black girl/womanhood with fascinating images, compelling observations and a nomadic sense of questioning, while honouring the concept of silence and the ways it plays out in one’s interior life. These delicate poems unpick encounters with loved ones, friends and animals (there’s a beautiful poem about snails) and also focus firmly on the wider world, with poems such as 'Pandemic vs Black Folk' written with the sharpest of tongues.” —Kadish Morris, The Guardian “Clever and capacious poems . . . Bulley invites us in as she turns everything – intimate and secret, precious and precarious – inside out. . . . Bulley’s collection may begin quietly, but by the end her voice is clearly heard.” —Sana Goyal, TLS “[These] poems are so compelling that you won’t be able to stop reading them.” — Elle “A quiet revolution of a book – subtle, supple and serious . . . Tender and true, complex and profound, Quiet is a beautiful balancing act of a book – a debut that brings Adukwei Bulley fully formed, starting something.” —2023 Rathbones Folio Prize Judges “These poems call out in the quiet, the personal and the political fused, the poet falling through the self and plucking from the air bright marvels, lost and stolen language, defiance, lamentation and beauty.” —Eoin McNamee, Chair of Judging Panel, 2023 John Pollard International Poetry Prize “ Quiet moves between anger and tenderness, scientific curiosity and raw grief, full-on noisiness and meditative quiet. [Bulley’s] spirited and generous work is not always quiet: there are overtly political poems, poems in experimental forms, and a number of spectacularly powerful prose poems, including a long and dazzling riff on ‘noise.’ Buy the collection.” —Carol Rumens, “Poem of the Week,” The Guardian “The NS’s top poetry pick for 2022 . . . Bulley explores silence as a means of resistance, examines ideas of black interiority, and wonders how far one needs to let others ‘in’ in order to be understood.” — New Statesman “[ Quiet ] employs a wide range of poetic forms and lyric breakages that are well-observed and fitting for the world Bulley wants to build, destroy, and rebuild again. . . . Quiet is an exploration of what can be conjured – dreamed – from darkness, from nothingness. And of course, the horrors, tangible and figurative, that one must know intimately in order to survive the belly of such a beast: racism, mental illness, loss and grief. The collection hones its sharpest lyric blades, its most piercing lines, against the walls of this blackness.” — Magma Poetry , Arianna Benson “ Quiet , Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s first, lambent collection of poetry . . . is rich in multitudes. With deft grace, Bulley’s poems delve into Black selfhood and the surrealism of daily life. They wryly reckon with both institutional and interpersonal erasure, speaking through the noise. . . . In all its unquieting brilliance, Quiet is a gift of a book to bless your year anew.” — The Big Issue “[A] standout debut . . . This is an exploration of race, empire, friendship, nature and community written with an assured combination of critical originality and formal skill that is rare in first collections.” —Martina Evans, Irish Times “Bulley has concertinaed an exhilarating breadth of ideas into her incisive debut. Quiet augurs a bold career.” —Sylee Gore, Harriet Books, Poetry Foundation “Victoria Adukwei Bulley’s stunning poems draw you in with their melodious versatility, intellect and dexterity; perfectly embody the political through the personal; and are freedom-loving shapeshifters constantly changing form and animating ideas and language to surprising effect. This is her debut collection, but she arrives fully formed.” —Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other