Zong! is a book length poem about slavery and the legal system. It is largely related to the late 18th century Zong massacre when the crew of the slave ship Zong mass murdered the 133 African slaves they were transporting. They did so because they had taken out insurance on the slaves they were transporting as cargo, and they wanted to claim the insurance money on the slaves, so they threw them into the sea to drown. Upon reaching port at Black River in Jamaica, the Zong's owners tried to claim the insurance money for the murdered slaves, but the insurance company refused to pay, and the case went to court. Precedent in this matter was that the killing of slaves was legally permissible and that the insurance would normally have to pay; however, the judge found in favor of the insurance company since the captain's excuse as to why he had to kill the slaves would have been preventable and was due to his mistakes.
Philip's book length poem Zong! deals with this massacre and attempts to give voice to the slavery so brutally murdered in it. The poem excavates the legal text of the Gregson vs Gilbert trial and decision in an attempt to tell the untellable story. It is a poly-vocal, legal poem that pushes the bounds of the poetic form. The poems are written in fragmented style with short lines and many line breaks. They explore the perspective of the dead slaves as well as the idea of human greed and cruelty. They are written abstractly in a way that resembles memory and asks the reader to engage with the massacre that the book is centered around.
