How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

Safiya Sinclair is a critically acclaimed poet who graduated from the University of Virginia’s poetry MFA program. She is best known for her debut poetry collection Cannibal (2016), which was the winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. For her poetic work, Sinclair has also been awarded a prestigious Whiting Award. The selection committee noted that her poetry is “[r]ich and mythic, heavy with the legacy of family and history” and that, in her poetry, “[t]he mother […] recedes into myth, while the father erupts from the page, threatening disruption and disturbance” (“Safiya Sinclair.” Whiting Foundation). Many of the images and themes that appear in her poetry are featured in How to Say Babylon.

How to Say Babylon focuses on the beginning of Sinclair’s writing career, which allows her access to the wider world and saves her from her father’s abuse, playing into the theme of Literature as a Form of Liberation. The memoir is rich in lyrical description and imagery, as Sinclair finds poetry in the landscape around her: “[M]y mother taught me the poetry of greenery” (54), highlighting that, for Sinclair, poetry is everywhere.