Praise for Quiet Fires:
“With an ear finely tuned to the shape and sorrows of living, to the celebration of transformation and survival, mattis has brought forth a work of lyrical prowess that fashions from the self a site of linguistic power and searing dexterity.”
—Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
andriniki mattis’s Quiet Fires is a multiverse, surging in clarity, blur, and incandescence that burns in bold language and intimacy. The poet tells us, “i blew my heart out of my body/& couldn’t put it back.” These poems gasp, scream, and whisper with the mouths and ghosts of selves who are both dead & resurrected in cities, forests, hospitals, lovers, and most vividly––the body itself. You will find grace in each incision and collision of wounds. Lyrical, percussive, dissonant, and symphonic all at once, mattis’s poetry hurls lightning, moonlight, and the blues of what we are listening for in the other worlds and memories of ourselves. With “quiet fires” we are told again and again: “there is so much earth/for us all.”
—Rachel Eliza Griffiths, author of Seeing the Body
“Quiet Fires is a work of "hazardous joy" that drops the bones to light the flesh, and vice versa. In the multiverse that andriniki gabriel mattis has convened in the form of a book, embodiment is neither performance nor a mode of research. Instead, "suddenly me" + "sprawling lines & brief bits of color" make the world come alive beneath the "precious hands" that make these poems possible, a reader and writer's alike.”
—Bhanu Kapil
“I love the image-work that andriniki is up to in Quiet Fires, it's a work of breath and defiant breadth, moving between cities, countries and vernaculars, a revision of gender norms and love languages and much more...a poet up to sharp, fluid and lyrical mischief. Don't sleep on this voice!”
—Raymond Antrobus
Quiet Fires, the debut poetry collection from andriniki mattis, queries the everpresent questions of Black lives. Be it in a bakery in Brixton, London, at a corner on Malcolm X Blvd, Brooklyn, or the pews of Notre Dame, Paris – whether crossing violent borders on land or in gender, we know how it is to be in a familiar place that feels foreign.
As we follow along on bike rides over the Manhattan Bridge or sit alongside queer lovers in Bushwick, mattis reflects on the profound impact of pandemics, indifference, and heartbreak. In these lyrical and intimate poems that interrogate white spaces on the page and in the world with evocative metaphors, we wonder: “is there ever a party if you're always working this skin”— where can we feel safe and loved? In a world of climate change and the constant “twilight of violence,” be it gun violence or the expectations of capitalism, quiet fires erupt in these errant everyday moments. Centered around the experience of the Black queer, trans body, andriniki gabriel mattis uncovers the complexities of identity and the quest for self-discovery.
Purchase
Published: 15/06/2023 (UK) | 17/07/2023 (US)
Other Publications
Montez Press
Indiana Review
Anamot Press
The Sun Isn’t Out Long Enough
“the sun isn’t out long enough”
House Party #15
Wildness Journal
Wasifiri Journal Issue 98 Summer 2019
"in the car ride to the city you have never known that claims to know you,"
"in the night i find myself finding you."
"what can be said about two bois in love"
"i want to wear flowers in my hair and keep the boy in me"
"a chiaroscuro love," "even the sun starts to burn after a while," "i lost my seams..."
Cortland Review Issue 68
“When summer lied at my feet”
Nepantla Journal Issue 2
“How to live between the lines”
Pariahs Anthology 2015
"the black sheep who forgot its clothing,"
"for every black boy who does not sing,"
"everyday life on earth."
Poet's House
"Each Time a News Headline Extracts the Lining of My Throat
Typo Mag Issue 25
"how to dissociate completely"
Other Writings