M. NourbeSe Philip uses the format and the text in Zong! to recognize the lives lost and the tragedy that the Zong massacre brought. Captain Luke Collingwood boarded 470 slaves on his ship, Zong, to bring them to Jamaica. However, he deliberately overcrowded the boat with more slaves than it was supposed to carry to get the most out of his profits. When it hit a period of no wind, many of the slaves and crew members began to die. “Over the next week the remaining crew members threw 132 slaves who were sick and dying over the side” (Bernard). The insurance underwriter tried to take this to the courts since he knew that the ship had enough water for the journey but the judges sided with the owners. As a result, the ship owners were able to claim insurance money on the slaves that were thrown over. Society disregarded the slaves because of the color of their skin so the lives lost were never given justice. Philip created these poems to honor the lives that were lost.
At first look, the poems do not make sense when first looking at them but their unreadability is significant in that it pays respect to what happened the night of the massacre. According to Philip the main goal of her poems was, “to release the story that cannot be told, but which, through not-telling will tell itself” (Philip 199). Philip understands that the real story will never be told because there is no correct representation of the night in any documents regarding the event. This is evident when she states, “the law attempts to extinguish being, as happened for 400 years as part of the European project” (Philip 200). The law was trying to make it seem like the crew was justified in the deaths of the slaves, but Philip is using her text to prove them wrong. Most importantly, Philip took the court case surrounding the massacre and crafted the poems to tell the slaves’ stories to create a new narrative of the tragedy. She wants the people to be remembered and her main purpose is to “defend the dead” (Philip 200).
Zong! #1 has letters that spell out water in a downward motion across the page. The poem states, “wat er wa ter” (Philip 4). Philip formats the first poem using water to introduce the ocean as the setting of the tragedy. The letters are spread out in a way that reflects the waves and the movements of the ocean. Water is not directly spelled out for many lines but inferred based on the next line’s letters. The format also reflects the disrupted journey through the ocean the slaves were about to go through. The poems continue to contain spaces in between words and even have random words all over the pages. Philip does this for the text to mimic the voices of those thrown overboard and struggling to speak as the water is drowning them. For example, Zong! #7 states, “the throwing overboard the be come apprehended exist did not” (Philip 15). The pauses between the words signify the people fighting the water and struggling to stay above it to share their stories. In one of her journals, Philip states, “All the poems- need a great deal of space around them- as if there is too much cramping around them-as if they need to breathe” (Philip 194). This shows that the spaces were intended to symbolize the struggle to breathe. Also, the poems have no correct way to read them. No matter what way you read them, they are unreadable and are barely understandable. When I first read the poems, I was very confused. I wanted a clear poem that was easy to analyze, especially for my blog post. However, as I continued to read to the Notenda part, I realized that Philip intentionally made the poems like that. She states, “In the struggle to avoid imposing meaning, I confront the tension between the poem that I want to write and the poem that must write itself” (Philip 199). The point of the poems is to tell the story of the people killed, which goes against the narrative of the people who justified the massacre. Philip shares her journals to show how her experience in writing the poems connects to the overall tragedy. In one of her journals she states, “I sit and watch the flow of people and suddenly become aware that the fragment appears more precious” (Philip 201). She is looking at the groups of people passing by in the airport and she realizes that the group of people means more than a singular person. She notices the beauty in the group. Philip takes this realization into the poems by encompassing the voices of many slaves in each poem. The spaces and the random words also reflect the different voices shouting simultaneously as they drown. The poems are unreadable because Philip is using the text to convey the different voices saying different words as they are in the water. Philip continues to adhere to her purpose to “defend the dead” (Philip 200), by adding a space to the beginning of each poem. This space is done to recognize and remember the life that was lost. She takes the silence as a moment to acknowledge what was happening to them on the ship before beginning the stories. Then, she uses the words to capture the story of the slave who was just thrown overboard along with the rest that was in the water. Philip deliberately formatted the text throughout the poem with spaces and made the text unreadable to capture the stories of the lives lost while respecting what they went through.
Questions:
- How did your interpretation of Zong! change once you read the “Notanda” section?
- How do the blank spaces and the tone that they create reflect Philip’s purpose for writing the poems?
Works Cited
Bernard, Ian. “The Zong Massacre (1781)”. BlackPast, 9 Jan. 2023, https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/zong-massacre-1781/.
Philip, NourbeSe M. Zong! Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
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Hi Mackenzie, I really enjoyed your blog post! I especially liked how you explained that Philips writing styles won’t ever make the most clear sense. To answer your first question, Philip’s writing style definitely shows the tragedy and emotions of this historical event. At first I had no idea what was being said or what this was even about until I read the Notanda. The spacing and even the small amount of word choice gives you that sad and intense emotion that happened on the Zong ship. Philips states, “the throwing….. Overboard” (Philips 15). The spacing and the little word choice brings that intensity that is portrayed from the event Zong. Philip chooses the main words of the event such as, “overboard” “water” “the throwing” etc to bring out those raw emotions. After reading the Notanda it can create a deeper feeling for these poems and not just having a better understanding.
Hey Nina! I really enjoyed hearing your perspective on the silence within the spaces of the poems. My interpretation of Zong! Was definitely altered once I read the “Notanda” section. I felt like everything was pieced together and made a lot more sense. To answer your second discussion question, the blank spaces absolutely reflect Philip’s purpose for writing the poems. Philip states, “…the belief that the story of these African men, women, and children thrown overboard in an attempt to collect insurance monies, the story that can only be told by not telling, is locked in this text. In the many silences within the Silence of the text” (191). In this quote Philip is expressing that the only correct way to honor the slaves lives that were lost is to provide silence in the text for them to tell their own story. There are no records to support what actually happened besides what the ship owners reported. Therefore, Philip emphasizes “Silence” by capitalizing it to show it has more meaning than just blank space. The silence is the slaves who never got to tell their story.
Hi Mackenzie, great blog post! When I first started reading Zong! I was very confused and unaware how to make up the poems. I liked how you spoke about Phillip’s writing style. To answer your first question my interpretation changed after reading the Notanda section because it made it easier to understand because there was more emotion while reading. When the words are close together and the words are making full sentences it is easier to understand and you can read it and feel the emotion within the reading. “the more… of… exist..” (Phillip 12) After reading the pages with the words super spaced out it gives a more intense way of reading the book. When the words are spaced out like that it gives the ability to read the pages a different way and makes it interesting for the reader to read. After reading the Naotanda section it created a more normal feel of reading and made it feel like the readers could connect to it easier.
Hi Nina, I really enjoyed your blog post! I had originally read the first passage and thought of someone stuttering to say the words, however, I think that your connection to the waves relates more closely to the actual message being written out, “water”, so that insight was very helpful to me.
To answer your second question, I believe the spaces are meant to provide the reader with distance. The idea of seeing a journey to travel to get from word to word closely aligns to what the author’s intended meaning is. Phillip wanted to provide space for those who had never gotten it before, and who would never get the chance to receive it again. The notion that this “space” she is providing travels all the way onto the page, gives the reader an interesting and informative reading experience. In Zong #4 Phillip states “this / should / not / be” (7). I think that the space from word to word and the separation of the sentence as a whole is there to show emphasis and significance, simply writing it as a regular sentence seems almost understated after reading it the way Phillip wrote it, and I believe that goes for everything that we have read in this book so far.
Hey Nina! Great blog post. Very insightful. I find it very sad that there is no accurate depiction of events that fatal night. If there were, maybe more would receive justice and recognition. But to answer your second question, there is a reasoning behind Philips choices. If like you said, there is no accurate testimony to the night, then the blank spaces could signify the lost information about the horrible night. The tone is that of dreadful. We understand the circumstances and the lives that are lost, yet it is coupled with this odd spacing throughout the poem. I believe not only does the distance perhaps signify lost information, I believe it also represents the significance of the event. There is not a lot of room to misinterpret the text as there is so much blank space. And that blank space is meant to emphasize the text. “This page intentionally left blank” (Philip 5) This page was intentionally left blank in order to emphasize the other pages with text.
Hi Nina great job on your blog post. When I first started reading I was very lost and confused but I think your intro sort of cleared things up for me pretty well. I have a much more clear understanding what happened the night of the Zong massacre. To answer your second question, I think the small amount of words used on each page is done for an extremely important reason. Having so few words on the page only gives even more emphasis on the words that are on the page. It makes them far more impactful and standout. One of those being Zong #4. “This is not was or should be this be not should be this should not be.” (Phillip 7). This honestly took me a few times to understand. But my interpretation was that she was saying this was a situation that should not have happened by any means. Using these few and same words over and over makes it evident on her view.