Antrobus experiences a form of hearing impairment where he's unable to make out very high and very low-frequency sounds. Not full deafness, though deafness is rarely total, but enough to make life tricky. He's a poet, and so he expresses himself much more poetically than John does, but equally forcefully and clearly, so you really get an understanding of what it's like to for him to move through the world.

Where Davidson's condition intersects with his class to a large extent, Antrobus' intersects with his race, as a person of dual heritage, White British and Jamaican. This leads to the usual not White enough / not Black enough issue but also some horrible embarrassments, such as when he visits the village that bears his (White mother's) name and it's assumed he's a descendant of the slave-owner's rape of enslaved people. It's a generally positive and very useful book, explaining how D/deaf poetry works, and the differences between the type of education people receive and the sign languages people communicate in around the world. He gives a historical context to education and writing and also goes back to visit some of his own teachers, also sharing the history of a school friend who took a different, sadder path. As he gains in confidence, he meets "wizardly poetry librarians", which made me smile.

There's a very powerful and moving section near the end where Antrobus imagines an ark which is going to save all the things important to D/deaf culture, including different words for conditions that I'd not come across before (deaf kin, Deafhood, hearing canon, Deaf gain).

Blog review published 28 August 2025: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/08/28/two-memoirs-of-living-with-disabilities-john-davidson-i-swear-and-raymond-antrobus-the-quiet-ear/

Raymond Antrobus is an award-winning poet, writer, and teacher, and his memoir discusses identity, belonging, and the transformative power of art. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussions of musicians, painters, poets, etc., and their relation to their art and the world around them as deaf people. I also enjoyed and appreciated the author’s own discussion of identity and belonging in a world full of noise as someone who is missing sound. It was fascinating to learn more about his upbringing, his writing process, and his experiences in a deaf school, and how this shaped him into the poet and teacher he is today.

Like Antrobus, I was around seven when I started to lose my hearing. I stayed in mainstream schools, perhaps not deaf enough to go to a deaf school, and not hearing enough to excel in a mainstream one. This ‘in-betweenness’ is something Antrobus discusses at length, both in this book and his poetry, and something I feel a lot of deaf people have to navigate at various points in their lives. I didn’t receive a hearing aid until I was fourteen, halfway through secondary school, and at that point I felt behind, unsure of who I was or where I fit in. It was validating to read about similar and different experiences.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion/W&N for the arc.

A beautifully written memoir detailing Antrobus’ experiences with deafness.

He details how his deafness - from diagnosis to acceptance - has affected his life from struggles at school and with his self-esteem to communicating with his son.

He also looks at deafness throughout history, art and music as well as his experiences both in England and Jamaica.

A fascinating and informative read.

Thanks to Orion Publishing Group | W&N and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Quiet Ear by Raymond Antrobus is an interesting and poignant memoir that explores the experience of deafness and difference.