#safiya sinclair

[llovelymoonn]

safiya sinclair the art of unselfing

kofi

[bloodmaarked]

➸ reading list

just added:

the body keeps the score, bessel van der kolk

remarkably bright creatures, shelby van pelt

the silent patient, alex michaelides

the wife, meg wolitzer

jillian, halle butler

how to say babylon, safiya sinclair

sunrise on the reaping, suzanne collins

the trunk, kim ryeo-ryeong

crying in h mart, michelle zauner

the joy luck club, amy tan

[dk-thrive]

Memory is a tributary, a brackish stream returning to the ocean that dreamt it.

Memory is a river. Memory is a pebble at the bottom of the river, slippery with the moss of our living hours. Memory is a tributary, a brackish stream returning to the ocean that dreamt it. Memory is the sea. Memory is the house on the sand with a red door I have stepped through, trying to remember the history of the waves. In telling this story, I have followed my river all the way down to the sea, treading as closely as I could to my memory of the people, places, and events that shaped my life. Outside of my family, most of the names and identifying characteristics of the people who appear in this book have been changed. May each of you find your way back to the water.

— Safiya Sinclair, from The Author's Note in "How to Say Babylon: A Memoir" (37 Ink, October 3, 2023)

[andreabadgley]

I found this one on Barack Obama’s best books of 2023.

[wolfythoughts]

Book Review: How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

A poet recalls her childhood growing up as a minoritized Rastafarian in Jamaica with an abusive father. Summary:Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world…

[poetryisdistillation]

[crashoutcore]

everyone should read how to say babylon by safiya sinclair

[bloodmaarked]

how to say babylon: a jamaican memoir // safiya sinclair

first published: 2023 read: 23 april 2025 - 30 april 2025 pages: 352 format: e-book

genres: non-fiction; memoir; family; religion (rastafari) first line(s): "behind the veil of trees, night's voices shimmered. i stood on the veranda of my family's home in Bickersteth in the small hours after midnight, on the lonely cusp of womanhood, searching for the sea."

rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 thoughts: how to say babylon is one of my favourite reads so far this year, taking one of the top 5 spots! i have read quite a few amazing memoirs this year and this one is definitely up there as it's stunning. moving and engaging, with gorgeous writing, i couldn't help but be pulled in. it is a look into the world of rastafari, an exploration of life growing up in a home with an oppressive and devout father, and how she grew to love writing poetry, and i was hooked for every moment of it.

the writing is really incredible. safiya sinclair moved me with her descriptions - of her emotions, of the people in her life, and of jamaica. i'm part jamaican and her words made me long to revisit the country. everything felt so rich, and her emotions jumped off the page. i felt her hurt, felt the moments of joy between her and her mother, felt her strength. her writing was so good that i'm seriously thinking about picking up one of her poetry collections - this coming from someone who has no interest in reading poetry.

i felt enlightened by her discussions on rastafari and what it truly entails. my knowledge of rastafari is surface-level, and i don't know anyone who is rastafarian. safiya's own experiences growing up in a rastafarian household, supplemented by her own research, made for a rich and informative look into the practices and beliefs of followers. the particular look at the role of women, and how they often go unseen, was worth shedding light on. she was able to speak from the perspective of growing up as a daughter, from watching her mother who joined rastafari from the age of nineteen, and from the very different lives she witnessed of the women both within and outside of the religion.

i was impressed by how eloquently she was able to recount what was clearly a difficult childhood, and the nuance she brought to her story. she shows that, while her father was deeply influenced by the tenets of rastafari, she doesn't lay blame at the religion. while rastafari is not perfect (is any religion?) and there is certainly room for improvement in how it treats its members, she also shows that her father took the rastafari principles to their extremes, resulting in an oppressive upbringing steeped in misogyny. and even then, while it is easy to see her father as the "villain", the story is still further balanced by looking into his own difficult upbringing, and the oppression he faced, both from his family and from the wider jamaican community, as a result of his decision to become rastafari. i think she really did a lot to pull apart the threads of her story and trace them back to their roots. her relationship with her mother is also given a similar treatment, and i thought her story was wonderfully told - because while she was certainly not a perfect mother, she also had her own issues to overcome, having gone into marriage from a vulnerable place, acting as the shield between her husband and her children as best she could, and being in difficult marriage herself.

i thoroughly enjoyed how to say babylon and highly recommend reading it. i am sure i will be thinking about this book for a long time. all the best memoirs don't just inform, they make you feel, and safiya sinclair did that in spades.

[opulentquotes]

There was more than one way to be lost. More than one way to be saved. While my mother had saved me from the waves and gave me breath, my father had tried to save me only by suffocation. With ever-increasing strictures, with incense smoke, with fire. Both had wanted better for me, but only one of them would protect me in the end.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

[askatknits]

A Gathering of Poetry | 6.20.24

It’s the third Thursday of the month and that means it’s time to join Bonny in gathering up some poetry to share with you all! Thanks to the RWU selection this month, I discovered a new-to-me poet, Safiya Sinclair. I know several of you struggled with the poem she shared in How to Say Babylon but maybe this poem of hers will speak to you. At least I hope it will speak to you as it did to me! The…

[paynomindtomyidiocy]

Flights of Fancy

After Safiya Sinclair

Cans of soda keep their fizz for years – much longer than plastic bottles, which inevitably expand and contract, air seeping out ’til none is left, lifeless liquid lying static, line against the bottle, flat. The bottles I have tucked against the seats before me have crinkled sharply as the plane descend on the other side of the Atlantic, left a thorny, jagged husk by the changing pressure of the cabin air. Embrace the pressure: it’ll turn your skin to diamond, split you apart and set you rolling in the mud, lost and looking. What can I say? My soul goes every night outside my body; roams in and under, over, through the walls; it scours this silver city’s sunken skyline. She’s crying for her past and future self, screaming out and hearing nothing in return; she’s tearing at the seams and comes undone but she’s not done and in the silence now a crack, a hiss of air, a whisper: “You’re lost forever.”

[ukdamo]

Planet Dread

Safiya Sinclair

Dreadnought, I. Dread from the sea I was drawn, I

blue as dread, tender dread, taloned as our future dread.

Dread the constellation I was born under, dread I

slept under, dread the waves of history, blustering red.

Dread my mother’s calm. Dread the harpy’s song. Dread she

nursed me, dread she named me. Dread my girlhood

under sugar cane. Dread the hurricane. I was a child

of dread a psalm of dread, dread pressed into my palm

like the blessed herb. A divine dread, Rastaman said. Before I

could speak there was dread, before I could stumble.

Dread roamed the shore a ghostly spume, dreadless thread

of the woman I’m erasing, dread my one coastline crumbling

to sea rise, to abyss. Dread my dead tooth unmaking

the veil, dread the ointment I, dread the wound I, dread the wail I,

dread the johncrow’s eye, smoke of black clouds heralding

only dread. Skirmish of youth, my constant banner of dread.

Dread at home, dread to the bone, my father dangling his guillotine

of dread. Dread as daily bread. Nursed dark by decades of dread,

teachers recoiled at my knotted thorns of dread. How the white

girls blanched with dread. Scorned for the hair on my head.

Beware my Blackheart of dread, the reckless haunt of my dread,

girl born of nothing but salt-air and dread. Girl who bore nothing

but a vision of dread. Such a savage, dread. Thrum of the natty dread.

Congo Bongo dread. Martyred was the dread. Brother still the dread.

Blood of my dread. Babylon maiming families of dread, pastors railing

against our dread, dread the crown of heavens I wear upon this head. Dread

at the root, dread of the fruit. Sister of dread. Daughter of the dread.

First woman giving birth to her dread. A gorgon stoning every baldhead, dead.

[girljeremystrong]

does anyone have recs for memoirs by black authors? <3

[geryone]

Listening to the audiobook for Knife by Salman Rushdie & getting whiplash every time he talks about poets that I love