I take this January morning in my hands and wonder
if it should go under London, England, Britain, British, Black-British -

where to put the burning house, the child made ash, the brick in the back
of the neck, the shit in the letter box and piss up the side of it?

I file it under fire, corpus, body, house.
From the poem Ark (pg.2)

A harrowing and raw debut collection that explores the trauma of the New Cross Massacre and how it continues to reverberate through our society today through tragedies such as Grenfell. There were so many poems in here that blew me away, but my favourite were two poems that work as a pair, + and - (pages 13 and 14).

There were some poems in Surge that I felt didn’t fit in with the others, and, whilst they didn’t detract from Bernard’s powerful pieces, they made it a jagged reading experience at times. I may be completely wrong but, for me, some of the placements felt a bit off, so I would’ve personally reorganised them to make the collection flow better.

Favourite Poems
Ark
Songbook (highly recommend looking up Bernard’s reading of this poem on YouTube)
+
-
Kitchen
Proof
Hiss
Songbook II
Chemical
Flowers

I read this book and listened to it on audiobooks which I wouldn't have thought off but it makes such a difference to hear poems out loud especially when rad by the author who knows where and when to place emphasis. The poems in this collection are moving, powerful explorations of the New Cross fire and more recently Grenfell, how structural racism hasn't changed that much. Many of the poems are written in patois or as songs and agin the audio version really helps add passion to the words. There are a few really great poems about being queer. This is an important collection of poems about an often neglected piece of history.

While like most poetry collections, there were certain poems that fell flat, the ones that didn't were absolutely heart-wrenching. Centred mostly around the horror of the New Cross Massacre, the poems are rich with little gems like "the light that evening turned blue to siren blue" or "every year / I hear summer ask how autumn / can endure / winter's undoing". Sprinkle in references to Grenfell, Windrush/their Caribbean roots, their sexuality and their identity as non-binary, and you have an immensely powerful and all-consuming debut. It's been such a pleasure too to return to my favourite poems again and again, and to get something, notice something more with every read. Can't wait to see what they come out with next.