Being as I am a huge fan of poets like Hanif Abdurraqib, I find myself drawn to poetry that carries in its verse a sense of memory, longing and reverence for the people that pass through and within our lives, often leaving abruptly and all too soon. These poems inhabit that realm of memory, keening for a past departed.

A. Van Jordan’s When I Waked, I Cried To Dream Again is a disparate collection of prose that I had trouble fully getting into, mainly due to the nature of the collection and the way it’s organized.

The collection seeks to celebrate Black youth and innocence, examine the way that Black youth is often cut short by police violence in America, and expound upon the general Black experience in America, from the founding of the original colonies to the present day. Jordan also seeks to mix in Black Shakespearean characters throughout the collection, sometimes dwelling upon what happens to them in original poems, and other times writing prose passages about their fictional experiences, and he uses them as framing devices for several larger themes, with many of them pointing out the hypocrisy of White America. Jordan uses poems, fictional interviews, ‘definition poems,’ and longer prose passages to explore the topics, themes, and experiences he seeks to internally discuss and convey to readers, and it makes for an overall varied reading, allowing readers to experience many different kinds of writing.

And I think that’s where the collection felt a little lacking for me—while the topics and subjects of the collection are crucially important to examine in the increasing violence and racism of 21st century America, they’re oftentimes jumbled in with Shakespearean references and characters, and, if you aren’t that familiar with the characters themselves, a lot of the details and references go right over your head, and their impact isn’t felt in the way that Jordan would like them (presumably) to be felt. Combining pages of poems with a fictional interview transcript with longer definition poems and photographs from decades ago created a jarring reading experience that didn’t flow well in my opinion, and I felt slightly duped by the declaration of ‘Poems’ on the book’s cover. This collection is anything but straight poems, and I found myself having to readjust my expectations in terms of what I was reading.

Saying that, the poems themselves are phenomenally written, and the inclusion of other prose pieces makes sense, even if I didn’t personally enjoy the frequent switching between styles. I honestly feel like I’m missing a lot of what I’m supposed to be getting from this collection as well due to my limited experience with Shakespeare (I haven’t read or studied the Bard in over 12 years), and maybe my opinion would change if I was more familiar with the characters and plays mentioned. With how detailed and literary some of the passages and poems got, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a very accessible collection of poetry/prose, and I’m a little surprised a major publisher published this versus an academic or indie press.

Either way, this is a collection worth reading at least once and studying. While Jordan’s message is important and clear, the way it’s conveyed is a little scattered at times, but that does nothing to blunt the impact of the events, themes, and experiences shared within these pages.

Thanks to NetGalley, W. W. Norton & Company, and A. Van Jordan for the digital ARC of ‘When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again’ in exchange for an honest review.

I really loved the pieces I got from this, but I admit I was really struggling with the format in the kindle version, and things were appearing in a broken-up, non-linear way.

I think this is a really powerful collection and I look forward to picking up the physical copy of this upon release.

This was a spectacular collection. I felt that it was most striking when making references to Shakespeare, so the first section was my favorite. The poems about Caliban in particular were the ones that stuck out to me.

What a wonderful example (and exploration) of poetry’s contribution to the conversations to be had around race, violence and social history.

The poet, A. Van Jordan, is Professor of Creative Writing at Stanford University and the recipient of a number of accolades. He has received numerous awards and a Gugenheim Fellowship for the five poetry collections he has previously published. This man knows his craft, something which is entirely obvious to me having now read ‘When I Waked, I Cried To Dream Again’.

The title is taken from my favourite Shakespearean play, ‘The Tempest’. In Act Three, Scene Two the character of Caliban says:

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.”

Caliban, savage, native to the isle, called “this thing of darkness” (Prospero, Act 5, Scene 1); is described as driven by base, lusty desires, course and animal like. He is enslaved and imprisoned in chains by Prospero — who is white, male and powerful — punished with beatings, torture and cruel words for attempting to force himself upon Prospero’s daughter, Miranda. He is placed on a footing, a social standing, well below even the most pitiful of creatures in the employ of the noblemen, without any care even being given to ensuring his basic human rights.

Even before his base, ‘uncivilised’ instincts led him to attempted rape, he is treated better, but like a pet and for the invaders it is not at all morally problematic to then press Caliban into servitude and slavery.

If the character of Caliban is not a representative of European invasion and colonisation of isles where Native Black men were kidnapped and enslaved (in the gloomy part of history that many people now like to pretend didn’t exist)…well, I don’t have to imagine, because that’s exactly what is happening here.

“This island ‘s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in ‘t, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile –
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you;
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king, and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ th’ island.”

— ‘The Tempest’, William Shakespeare
Act 1, Scene 2, lines 331–43 (first written and performed around 1611, published along with other works in the ‘First Folio’ in 1623)

Using an interplay of poetry, the photography of Malick Sidhibe, lyrical prose, interview and reference to Black characters who occur in the works of The Bard, A. Van Jordan creates a stunning elegy for the Black experience of Racism and gun violence in modern America.

He uses a number of Black characters in Shakespearean plays: Caliban and Sycorax from ‘The Tempest’; Aaron the Moor from ‘Titus Andronicus’; and the eponymous antihero of ‘Othello ‘, the brooding Moor himself — to mourn the deaths of Black people, particularly Black children, at the hands of police officers.

We read about names which should be engraved on all of our consciences. Children, Black children, like Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin. A. Van Jordan delivers to us a celebration of Black youth, particularly referencing those of 1960s Bamako (capital of Mali), where Sidhibe’s photos were taken: energized and alive in their pursuit of music, dancing, fashion, fun and romance; juxtaposed with those who are murdered by police in modern America (and here we are walked through exactly what happened to Tamir Rice, twelve years old and sitting at a picnic table, under a gazebo in a park; shot in the chest by a police officer firing through the window of a moving vehicle as it sped across the grass towards him.)

In the last section of this small but powerful one hundred and forty-four page book, A. Van Jordan writes about the fear, the sense of powerlessness which Black people feel in American society today.

In the Notes (at the end of the book) he references the fact that a Black body now seems to inherently carry threat. Threat to others, threat to themselves.

He looks towards a continued Revolution, but one of voices raised in song, whole communities taking the their streets to dance, to feel joy together in music (instead of the hatred and fear of their everyday existence.).

Due for publication on June 6th, I’m rather keen to get hold of a final copy. I’m imagining that this is a book which, despite being excellent to start with, will be on a whole new stunning level in print.
However, thanks go to the publishers, W.W. Norton, who sent me a digital pre-release proof copy for review (via Netgalley), because otherwise I don’t think it likely that I would ever have come across this little gem of a book.

In this collection of poetry (although it is so much more than simply that) A. Van Jordan celebrates both Shakespeare and black youth, weaving these two things together to create a moving and lyrical journey about police violence and it's impact on young black boys especially.

The title jumped out at me instantly, and any fan of Shakespeare will recognise the iconic quote from The Tempest, in which Caliban laments having to wake up, and wishes to stay asleep, living in his dreams. As Van Jordan clearly compares the figures of Caliban from The Tempest to murdered black children by cops in modern-day America, it becomes clear that, like Caliban, do we not also wish to 'dream again'? For to be awake, to be woke, is, like the boy on the front cover, to look off into the distance and face a country that allows this to happen. Not just once, but again and again.

Bringing in Caliban and Sycorax from The Tempest, Aaron from Titus Andronicus, and the eponymous Othello weaves together history and the present day, evaluating how black men have always been defined by the white people who surround them. Van Jordan uses a new form of window poems here to dissect how characters like Caliban and Sycorax are othered, a technique that sings to his ability as a poet.

More than just poetry however, Van Jordan also fills his newest collection with the joy and roaring music of youth, creating life on the page by building on Malick Sidibe's photographs. By interweaving the black and white photographs among the poems, both poem and photo build on each other, creating a new kind of ekphrasis. Van Jordan also uses dictionary definitions to create poems that deeply analyse the meanings of words, digging deeper than the excepted dictionary definition and placing the word under new light. A total dissection. This leads to enlightening histories where the roots of America's past are laid bare.

This collection is truly something special, and I am sure I will find myself going back to it, and each time gleaning something new from it. The best poems are the ones that touch something deep down in my soul, and every single one in this collection did that for me.

Van Jordan’s newest poetry collection blends Shakespeare with Black Lives Matte. It’s full of poems that move between and intertwine the lives of characters like Caliban and real victims of police violence like Tamir Rice. These cerebral and highbrow poems, in a testament to Jordan’s artistry, rarely come off as mere intellectual exercises—they are deeply felt, and considering Shakespeare turns out to be a rich reimagining of both the Shakespearean tradition and the representation of African Americans. “Window” poems are tables considering how what about each character might be known to themselves, known to others, not known to themselves, not known to others.

Shakespeare forms the strongest throughline of this collection, but Jordan also employs other thematic and stylistic methods to explore Black life. Returning to a form he’s used previously, he structures some poems as dictionary definitions (often overlaid on American legal documents), where they are records of epistemological violence (an example: the many valences of “fair”). Another section is based on the subjects of Malick Sidibé’s photos of Bamako.

The short story that shares its title with the collection comes from the perspective of a writer who has been left a manuscript in the will of (fictional) legendary Shakespearean scholar Higginbottom. Higginbottom is formidable, and, like Jordan, equally incisive about anti-Black violence and Shakespeare. It’s going to take me some rereads to fully absorb this story’s impact. The entirety of this ambitious, complex collection deserves careful attention.

In this hybrid work, A. Van Jordan weaves Shakespeare, Black youth, and police violence into a collection that manages to educate and inspire as much as it reflects the beauty of language.

I was so thrilled to see the way that Jordan plays with form throughout this book. From 'dictionary definition' poems to poems based on the Johari Window model, Jordan kept me guessing as his words came together to speak of Black experience through different lenses. As an experiment, I chose to read the collection through without looking up any of the Shakespeare references, and while I'm sure that knowledge would add to the text, the poems did not require that knowledge. If anything, I'm excited to visit these plays with Jordan's words in mind, helping to illuminate Shakespeare's few Black characters.

I especially loved the ekphrastic section of the book, pairing poems with photographs. The pairings always felt justified, and Jordan's interpretation of the images brought life into the still bodies. The characters he developed in that section were vivid despite being rendered in so few words, and I was sad to leave them when the collection moved on from their story.

I am always most excited about a poetry collection when it teaches me something new about the form, and that is exactly what Jordan has done in this work. It was such a pleasure to read, and I look forward to revisiting it. I imagine I will always find something new to discover.

This is fantastic. I do think I may have missed some of the true nuance and depth of this collection because I’m not the most familiar with Shakespeare, but this is still a super impactful and thought-provoking collection. The care and ache of continued murders of Black youth by police absolutely drops off the page. I found this compulsively readable and definitely made me think about historical representation has influences modern day perception.

5/5 - A true, hybrid work of art

First of all, this is fantastic. A melding of form and media; poetry, essay-like sections, photographs, and dictionary entries. There is a sense of myth and references to Shakespeare, both being used extremely well to speak on and explore the causation of young, black lives lost for nothing. Each section and each piece of media, whether it be visual or written (sometimes a combination of both), adds to a narrative argument that comes across vividly when the reader considers the work as a whole. Easily one of the best books I have read in a long time.

Look out for a potential episode on this closer to release day on my podcast 'Cafe Au Lit'