Vahni Capildeo

{{Infobox person

| name = Vahni Capildeo

| image = Vahni Capildeo for the Jhalak Prize Award 2022.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Capildeo reads for the Jhalak Prize Award 2022

| birth_name = Surya Vahni Priya Capildeo{{cite web|url=https://writersmakeworlds.com/vahni-capildeo/|title=Vahni Capildeo|work=Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds|first=Chelsea|last=Haith|date=2017|access-date=6 May 2022}}

| birth_date = {{bya|1973}}

| birth_place = Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality = Trinidadian and Tobagonian

| other_names = Vahni (Anthony Ezekiel) Capildeo

| occupation = Writer

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works = Measures of Expatriation (2016 Forward Prize for Poetry)

}}

Vahni Anthony Ezekiel Capildeo{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/01/the-guardian-view-on-trinidad-writers-women-take-the-lead|title=The Guardian view on Trinidad writers: women take the lead|author=Editorial|newspaper=The Guardian|date=4 May 2022}} (born

Surya Vahni Priya Capildeo, 1973) is a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer, and a member of the extended Capildeo family that has produced notable Trinidadian politicians and writers (including V. S. Naipaul, a cousin of Capildeo's, and Neil Bissoondath).{{cite news|first=Ann|last=Morgan|url=http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/tag/vahni-capildeo/ |title=Trinidad and Tobago: relative values|website=A Year of Reading the World|date=19 September 2012}}{{cite news|first=Andre|last= Bagoo|url=http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,87966.html |title=Dark and unaccustomed words|newspaper=Trinidad and Tobago Newsday|date=13 October 2008}}{{cite magazine|first=Nicholas|last= Laughlin|url=http://caribbean-beat.com/issue-66/whats-fun-and-fresh-caribbean-month |title=Undiscovered countries|magazine=Caribbean Beat|issue=66 |date=March–April 2004}}{{cite news|first=Erline |last=Andrews|url=http://m.guardian.co.tt/entertainment/2014-11-30/living-naipaul-legacy-capildeo%E2%80%99s-poetry-%E2%80%98original-provoking-and-strange%E2%80%99 |title=Living with the Naipaul legacy Capildeo's poetry is 'original, provoking and strange'|newspaper=Trinidad and Tobago Guardian|date=30 November 2014}}

Biography

Born in 1973 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Capildeo has lived in Scotland since 2017, and the United Kingdom since 1991. Capildeo is agender.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/03/why-we-female-trinidadian-writers-are-having-our-moment-monique-roffey|title='The pendulum has swung': Why we female Trinidadian writers are having our moment|author-link=Monique Roffey|first=Monique|last=Roffey|newspaper=The Guardian|date=3 May 2022}}

They read English at Christ Church, Oxford, and were subsequently awarded a Rhodes Scholarship{{cite web|url=http://www.rhodes-caribbean.com/register2.html |title=Register of Caribbean Rhodes Scholars|publisher=The Rhodes Trust}} to pursue graduate work in Old Norse and translation theory, also at Christ Church/the Faculty of English Language and Literature, towards their DPhil, Reading Egils saga Skallagrímssonar: saga, paratext, translations (2001).{{cite web|url=http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=OXVU1&docId=oxfaleph015291663 |title=Reading Egils saga Skallagrímssonar: saga, paratext, translations|publisher= University of Oxford}}

They intermitted from a Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, in 2000–04 to spend time in Trinidad and Jamaica. This produced No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003),{{cite web|url=http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/proddetail.php?prod=1876857889 |title=No Traveller Returns, Vahni Capildeo|publisher= Salt Publishing}} a book-length poem sequence characterised by a reviewer as "a discontinuous meditation on identity and self-awareness. These are merciless poems – mercilessly observant, mercilessly precise", and One Scattered Skeleton, a non-fiction book on the palimpsestic nature of place, memory, and language that takes its title from a poem by the Guyanese poet Martin Carter and moves between the UK, the Caribbean, and Iceland. Extracts from One Scattered Skeleton have appeared in London: City of Disappearances (ed. Iain Sinclair), Stand Magazine, The Arts Journal (Guyana) and The Caribbean Review of Books.{{cite news|url=http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,134235.html |title=Issues of belonging in Capildeo's 'Houses'|newspaper=Trinidad and Tobago Newsday|date=7 January 2011}}

Person Animal Figure, a set of 45 dramatic monologues in three voices, was published by Jeremy Noel-Tod's Landfill Press in 2005 (http://www.landfillpress.co.uk).

Undraining Sea (completed 2005), a third poetry collection, was published in 2009.[http://www.eggboxpublishing.com/authors/show/vahni_capildeo "Vahni Capildeo..."] at Eggbox. Described in one review as "a wholly recommendable collection",{{cite web|first=Andrew |last=Bailey|url=http://toddswift.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/guest-review-bailey-on-capildeo.html|title=Guest Review: Bailey on Capildeo|publisher= Eyewear Publishing|date= 19 May 2011}} it is a three-section book that actively engages with William Carlos Williams's Paterson. This was followed in 2012 by Dark and Unaccustomed Words (completed 2008), which takes its title from George Puttenham's 16th-century Arte of Poesie. This was Puttenham's critical term for arcane or foreign imports into English. The collection was longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.{{cite news|url=http://www.newsday.co.tt/features/print,0,174159.html |title=Three TT writers vie for literary award|newspaper=Trinidad and Tobago Newsday|date=28 February 2013}} These poems demonstrate, for example, the feeling and scope of certain parts of speech (prepositions, adjectives), forms, voices, or attitudes.

Rights for both books (originally published by Eggbox) have reverted to the author.

A fifth book, Utter, was published by Peepal Tree Press in 2013.{{cite web|url=http://www.peepaltreepress.com/single_book_display.asp?isbn=9781845232139 |title=Vahni Capildeo, Utter|publisher= Peepal Tree Press}}{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p022k63w |title=Trinidad and Tobago: Vahni Capildeo – Utter|website=Poetry Postcards|publisher=BBC Radio|date=10 July 2014}} Reviewing the collection in The Caribbean Review of Books, Vivek Narayanan wrote: "What we have here is not a set of conceits, or even concerns, but a system and a mythos entire, one that is delivered to us with such continuous and consistent lyrical intensity, both classical and contemporary, that it can appear as fissures of lightning on the page."{{cite journal|first=Vivek |last=Narayanan|url=http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/reviews/turtles-all-the-way-down/ |title=Turtles all the way down|journal=The Caribbean Review of Books|date=November 2015}} David Caddy in the magazine Tears in the Fence said: "Reading Vahni Capildeo’s Utter ... is an absolute joy, displaying the range and registers that the best of contemporary poetry should exhibit more fully. Capildeo is both Trinidadian and universal."{{cite web|first=David|last=Caddy|url=http://tearsinthefence.com/2013/12/19/vahni-capildeos-utter/ |title=Vahni Capildeo's Utter|website=Tears in the Fence|date=19 December 2013}}

Simple Complex Shapes, published by Tony Frazer's Shearsman Books in 2015, was written during Capildeo's time as the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. Jamie Osborn notes that this work " can be taken as a sequence of poems or one long poem describing a series of flights and falls from the moment of a touch in the dark through a day or days, a tangle of time, back into a dreaming sleep."{{cite web|first=Jamie|last= Osborn|url=http://themissingslate.com/2015/12/08/simple-complex-shapes-2/ |title=Simple Complex Shapes"= (review)|website=The Missing Slate|date=8 December 2015}}

Capildeo has worked at Oxfam Head Office and for the Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre as a volunteer and a volunteer trainer;[http://www.peepaltreepress.com/author_display.asp?au_id=229 Vahni Capildeo page], Peepal Tree Press. for the Oxford English Dictionary; and they have taught at the Universities of Leeds (2009), Greenwich (2009), Sheffield (2009–10), Kingston upon Thames (2010–11), and Glasgow (2012–13).[http://www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/issue5/VahniCapildeo.html Blackbox Manifold], 5 (2010); [http://almostisland.com/monsoon_2010/vahni_capildeo_1.php "Vahni Capildeo"], almostisland.com; [http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/suryavahnipriyacapildeo/ School of Critical Studies], University of Glasgow; [http://poetryandpicturesatthemuseum.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/profile-vahni-capildeo.html "Profile: Vahni Capildeo"], Poetry and Pictures at the Museum; [http://www.kingston.ac.uk/postgraduate-course/creative-writing-low-residency-ma/who-teaches-this-course.html "Creative Writing Low Residency MA: Who teaches this course"], Kingston University London; [http://infiniteeditions.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/vahni-capildeo-conversations.html "Vahni Capildeo – 'Conversations for a Lifetime in Twenty Minutes and Under'"], Infinite Editions, 25 May 2011. They are a Contributing Editor at the Caribbean Review of Books (edited by Nicholas Laughlin). They were part of the team of Commonwealth Writers, the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation, in 2013–14. They held the 2014 Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Cambridge and the 2015 Harper-Wood Studentship at St John's College, Cambridge. Capildeo was a Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds, 2017–19, the 2019–2020 Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow in Poetry at Queen's University Belfast, and 2020 Writer in Residence at the University of the West Indies (St Augustine Campus). They were 2022 Charles Causley Writer in Residence in Launceston, Cornwall. Capildeo is now Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of York.

In 2014, Capildeo served as a judge for the Forward Prize and won the Forward Prize for Poetry for Best Collection in 2016.{{cite web|url=http://carcanetblog.blogspot.com.ng/2014/10/a-pencil-coffee-beans-no-alcohol-and.html?q=Vahni+Capildeo|title='A pencil, coffee beans, no alcohol and much muttering'. Vahni Capildeo on judging the Forward Prize 2014|website=The Carcanet Blog|date= 10 October 2014}}{{cite web|url=http://www.forwardartsfoundation.org/poet/vahni-capildeo/ |title=Vahni Capildeo|publisher= Forward Arts Foundation}}

Awards

In 2016, Capildeo became the third Caribbean poet in a row – after Jamaican-born poets Kei Miller and Claudia Rankine – to win the Forward Prize for best poetry collection, with Measures of Expatriation.{{cite news|first=Sian |last=Cain|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/20/trinidadian-poet-vahni-capildeo-wins-2016-forward-prize-poetry |title=Trinidadian poet Vahni Capildeo wins 2016 Forward prize for poetry|newspaper=The Guardian|date=20 September 2016}}{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37428695 |title=Forward Prize: Capildeo leads poetry awards winners|publisher= BBC News|date= 21 September 2016}}{{cite news|first=Tristram Fane |last=Saunders|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/vahni-capildeo-wins-15000-forward-prize-for-poetry/ |title=Vahni Capildeo wins £15,000 Forward Prize for poetry|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=21 September 2016}}{{cite news|author-link=William Sieghart|first=William|last=Sieghart|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/sep/22/why-vahni-capildeo-deserved-to-win-the-forward-prize-poetry|title=Why Vahni Capildeo deserved to win the Forward prize|newspaper=The Guardian|date=22 September 2016}} The Chair of the Forward jury, Malika Booker, said: "Vahni Capildeo’s Measure of Expatriation is a work that amazes. We found a vertiginous excitement in the way in which the book grasps its subject: the sense of never quite being at home. This is poetry that transforms. When people in the future seek to know what it's like to live between places, traditions, habits and cultures, they will read this. Here is the language for what expatriation feels like."{{cite magazine|first=Katherine|last=Cowdrey|url=http://www.thebookseller.com/news/vahni-capildeo-wins-forward-prize-best-collection-398371 |title=Trinidad's Capildeo wins Forward Prize for poetry|magazine=The Bookseller|date=20 September 2016}}

In 2018, Capildeo received the Cholmondeley Award for poetry, from the Society of Authors.

In 2019, Capildeo was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.{{cite web|url=https://rsliterature.org/fellow/vahni-capildeo/|title=Vahni (Anthony Ezekiel) Capildeo|publisher=Royal Society of Literature|access-date=6 May 2022}}

In 2025, Capileo was named as the recipient of a Windham-Campbell Literature Prize in the poetry category.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/24/novelist-anne-enright-wins-an-175k-windham-campbell-prize|title=Novelist Anne Enright wins a $175k Windham-Campbell prize|first=Ella|last=Creamer|newspaper=The Guardian|date=24 March 2025|access-date=6 April 2025}}

Capildeo's Polkadot Wounds (2024) was the winner of the poetry category of the 2025 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.{{cite web|url=https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2025/04/06/three-authors-compete-for-2025-ocm-bocas-prize/|title=Three authors compete for 2025 OCM Bocas Prize|publisher=Bocas Lit Fest|date=6 April 2025|access-date=6 April 2025}}

Bibliography

No Traveller Returns. Salt Publishing, 2003. {{ISBN|978-1876857882}}
Person Animal Figure. Landfill Press, 2005.
Undraining Sea. Egg Box Publishing, 2009. {{ISBN|978-0955939907}} [rights reverted to author]
All Your Houses. Alice Yard, 2011.
Dark and Unaccustomed Words, Egg Box Publishing, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0956928917}} [rights reverted to author]
Utter. Peepal Tree Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1845232139}}
Simple Complex Shapes. Shearsman Books, 2015. {{ISBN|9781848614512}}
Measures of Expatriation, Carcanet Press, January 2016. {{ISBN|978-1784101688}}
Seas and Trees, Recent Work Press, 2017.
Venus as a Bear, Carcanet Press, 2018. {{ISBN|9781784105549}}.
Skin Can Hold, Carcanet Press, 2019. {{ISBN|9781784107321}}.
Odyssey Calling, Sad Press, 2020.
Light Site, Periplum, 2020.
The Dusty Angel, Oystercatcher, 2021.
Like a Tree, Walking, Carcanet, 2021. {{ISBN|9781800171954}}.
A Happiness, Intergraphia, 2022.
Polkadot Wounds, Carcanet Poetry, 2024. {{ISBN|9781800174252}}.{{cite web|url=https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800174252/polkadot-wounds/|title=Polkadot Wounds|publisher=Carcanet}}

References

External links

[http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=151 Vahni Capildeo reads poetry at PoetCasting]
Zannab Sheikh, [https://idontcallmyselfapoet.wordpress.com/category/poets-a-e/capildeo-vahni/ Vahni Capildeo interview], I Don't Call Myself a Poet, 15 August 2012.
[http://www.spaceswords.com/?page_id=463 "Vahni Capildeo"], The Spaces between Words.
[http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?showauthor=3491 Vahni Capildeo] at PN Review.
{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20150109133655/http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/7894/29/Vahni-Capildeo "Vahni Capildeo"]}}, Poetry International Web, Rotterdam, 1 November 2006.
Nicholas Laughlin (in conversation with Vahni Capildeo), [http://www.nicholaslaughlin.net/capildeo-interview-macomere.pdf "The Liberty of the Imagination"], MaComère 13.1&2 (2011–2012): 34–49.
[http://www.global-briefing.org/2013/01/in-the-trinidad-of-my-childhood-there-was-a-respect-for-and-delight-in-language-well-used/ "'In the Trinidad of my childhood, there was a delight in language well used'"] (interview), Global.