Poet Elida Silvey’s Compost Heap
Hiya, my name is Elida Silvey
I’m a Mexican-American poet, writer and editor based in London, UK. I’m part of Gobjaw Poetry Collective, who run monthly spoken word nights in London, and I write for Sunstroke Magazine, an arts and youth culture mag. I recently became editor for Latin Girls At Work’s blog Vocês, a charity that seeks to support Latinx women and non-binary people in the UK – a community that is close to my heart.
In 2021 I self-published Home in Limbo, a collection of poems and photographs I took and wrote during a trip with my dad to our family home in Aguascalientes, Mexico. This was the first time I had visited Mexico and I found it felt more familiar to me than I was expecting. This collection was a sort of reckoning with all the wayward parts of my identity and the limbo they exist within. In 2023 I followed up with an 80-poem collection titled, Nothings, about my long distance relationship with my partner. Written in my tiny New York City apartment, during my visits to see my partner here in London and in my parents’ basement while waiting for my visa, the book is a journey about falling for someone from across a vast, untamable ocean. Touching on themes of love, longing, lust and a different kind of in-betweenism, its words come from a very real, raw place within me.
I’m really interested in the connection between language (visual and auditory) and memory or dream formation. Spanish is my first language, but I find English to be the one that I am most expressive in. So I try to think critically about the language that is associated with whatever I’m using as the basis for a poem. Some of my work is an intersection of the two languages; with Spanish being peppered into a piece if it deals with themes of family, identity, or childhood, or with English following Spanish grammatical rules for a more melodic structure. These interests also spill onto some of the writing workshops I’ve run, as I often use surrealist and sense associative techniques to guide people into connecting words with their own memories.
A lot of my poetry is born out of my attempt to understand the world around me and the way I fit into it. It also acts as a form of release, allowing me to process hardship by highlighting the beauty that remains in spite of it. I’m fascinated by language’s ability to act as a projection screen, drawing pictures in your mind’s eye that represent someone else’s real, relatable but often intangible feelings. Writing, poetry in particular, feels like an incredibly intimate and honest way to connect with other people. I hope you enjoy my work and feel welcomed into my gooey, gushy, girlie mind.
Feel free to connect with me anytime @elida.silvey 💋
Girl-Apocalypse was written during the 5th session of Compost Library’s WRITE What's RIGHT workshop, as one prompt entitled “Vulnerability” helped me reflect on my desires and dreams. I ended up writing about the textures, objects and places that allow me to connect with my femininity as an act of rebellion.
Expansive
Expansive was written during the 6th session of Compost Library’s WRITE What’s RIGHT workshop following the prompt “Sound” which recommended we listen to ‘expansive’ music in order to think about your dreams. I listened to this playlist and writing it made me think about my future self and the kind of life I would love to have.
Expanding
is the shuttering of doors
so hard they fall off their hinges
I want to bathe in this newfound light
offer a bit of me to you, to who is willing to regard it
it, being everything and
nothing at all
see me.
I imagine my children
each delicate piece, created on paper
with fabric
with sound, non-sound
the lump in my throat gives way
dissolves
off the sides
a Beetle could walk on it
sticky legged, red-hot
giving into the malleability of dunes
some polygraphic gaze, ogling.
I hope to gather each precious pixel
like those toys you’d make pictures out of
with metal sand
Etch-a-Sketch a whole crusade
for the I that isn’t ashamed of
the me
who revels in her
gracelessness.
To expand space, not
dimensions but dreams
so they sit lofty above my head
above with the stars so gigantic
they form cattle stamped frames
in the bulbs of
my brain
light up every groove ‘til they’re neon
those streets full of music and wonder
take a big bite out of it
so it sits heavy in the stomach
a warm meal, on a cold night
a good night out
with friends
expand those feelings
not their distance
‘til shoulders graze
in karaoke bars off
abandoned highways, in towns
we can’t remember the names of
‘til all I has is me and
you and
you and
you and
you and
endless laughter.
Electronic, or Otherwise Known, Experimental
E.O.K.E. was written after seeing an experimental music act at Cafe Oto as one of my Compost induced artist dates. The show made me think about why I like music and how spaces like these erase everything that others me. It’s in the safe glow of warping music where I can exist as nothing. What’s more freeing than that?
The band plays sonics
sound spaces stretched
dwindled
then all of a sudden
aggressive
smell of bleach pours into the room
I lift my feet, afraid I’d stain
my maroon shoes
marble colour around the floor
bleed out from it
one, sip two
The song dopplers around the room
howling at the no-known moon
carcinogenic hue, not that
swiss cheese blue blue
not blue
blast me baby blast me
with the twist and turn of a synthesizer knob
a portal opens
another mind thought closes
tight like the mouth of an angry man
so tight you can barely see it
sink your teeth into its texture
so circular your head bobs about
buoy in all the sound
like a warning
Not blue, yellow
like summer marigolds
wafting noise, an ocean of ones and zeros
one, sip zer o
you find meaning in its truncations
finite bliss
candles light the room in a glow
inchworm made inch work
strained eyes
not used to the shadow play
the sound of laughter breaks the silence
outside
we are grounded
but only for a little while
up sound, speeds up, up-up and away
ready for takeoff
transcendental
only in so much as
it straps you in
does the astronaut merry go round
pulls flesh so tight
against your bones
you metamorphose
into a creature
an, alien
you learn to assimilate
when landing
brim with same-one-ness
til it’s shines so chemical
oil slicked pavement
only then can you move on up
leave this plane
par ticipate
the placard says your name in tungsten
wiggles about against the lighting
the sound encompasses
everything
you, the wholeness of nothing.
Slice of Toast
is the prelude poem in my most recent collection titled Nothings. The collection is about my long-distance relationship with my partner and it shares the feelings of helplessness that I felt while waiting for my visa back in the US.
My tongue runs over fuzzy Pepsi Cola teeth
attempting to wipe the sticky tack
residue
left over from an afternoon
spent.
In Spanish we say money was wasted, rather
than spent
I can’t think of us
in this moment
any other way.
It feels like time is wasted
spending it
implies there is something of value
worth saving up for.
Where you enthusiastically gather rusted
pennies, from
the taped over bottom-sides of
plastic pink piggy banks, or
collected them from
embossed floral green couch seats
in your mom’s home
the same ones she’s had since the late 90s
whose nooks and crannies
felt more like a loose assemblage of crumbs
than coins, or
pulled out of creased denim pockets,
dusty and sharp scented from their home
at the bottom of our pale
plywood wardrobe
outlying,
in a bedroom too far for me to walk to.
I wish I could save all my time for you instead
of wasting it
I find myself angry with it
a bright white-hot shade
of burnt orange marmalade
sitting stored in a jar inside of me
preserved
for the moment
when I can offer some of it to you
on a slice of toast.
Poetry Recommendations:
Diorama by Rocio Ceron
Rocio Ceron is a Mexican poet and spoken word artist that has always been incredibly influential to me as a burgeoning Mexican-American poet. Diorama is her only book with an English translation and it’s certainly not one to miss. Her vibrant use of visuals such as; “Candy and one ant. Brief asthma attack.” from her poem III is left imprinted in your mind long after you’ve turned the page.
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is another poet that has been incredibly influential to me, the tone and texture of his work feel incredibly American and equally sincere. My copy of this book has lost its binding from being read so much, I cannot recommend this enough. Accessibility in poetry is something that I find incredibly important and Ferlinghetti always championed for accessibility in the artworld. For that and his striking rhythm, A coney Island of the Mind has a special place in my heart.
You Don’t Have What It Takes to be My Nemesis: and Other Somatic Rituals by CA Conrad.
CA Conrad has one of the most refreshing takes on contemporary poetry coming out of America at the minute. Their use of poetry in conjunction with ritualistic practice brings to light our interconnectedness with nature and the cities we live in. As someone who often writes about both topics and who has her own set of writing rituals, I find their work incredibly poignant.
C+nto by Joelle Taylor
Another modern poet, Joelle Taylor is a London powerhouse. C+nto is a collection of poems about her experience within the LGBTQ+ community written through the visuals of vitrines, glass bottles and vivariums. Through her use of cinematic rhythm she pays homage to those she’s lost along the way. If you ever get a chance to see her read her work in person brace yourself for a large wave of emotion to encompass you.
This is my Goddamn Poem, and I Make the Rules: A Poet’s Manifesto by Micheal Kabasele
Creativity isn’t dead. It just lives in Micheal Kabasele’s head. Her incredibly funny poetry suberts the reader’s expectation about poetry and its structure by using imaginative references and rambling structures. Printed by Spun Press, this zine is less well known than its companions on this list but is equally worth reading.
Photo: @sickacidpuppies
Not Me by Eileen Myles
Oh Eileen, after my own heart. Not Me is the perfect series of ramblings from a New York haunt, with themes about femininity, sexuality and gender expression strewn across its pages in a stream-of-consciousness style. Each poem is equally as vivid and relatable as the next.
Pneumatic Antiphonal by Sylvia Legris
Sometimes poetry isn’t meant to make sense, sometimes it’s meant to evoke. Legris shows us this within Pneumatic Antiphonal as she utilizes anatomical language to evoke the movement of birds. Not for the faint of heart this book is for the language chewers. Read out loud, these poems will make you feel breathless.
