"English / is a foreign anguish," writes Marlene Nourbese Philip in her poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language" from She Tries her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks (1989). The poem examines the often brutal encounter of colonial subjects with the English language and its literature. Philip, through exploring what critic Barbara Fister has described as "the conundrum of language in a postcolonial context," works alongside fellow Canadian poets Dionne Brand and Claire Harris, and Caribbean writers Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Lorna Goodison.

Scorned for its formal innovation and political engagement by publishers in Philip's adopted home of Canada, She Tries Her Tongue received the Cuban Casa de Las Americas prize in 1988 while still in manuscript form. The collection was eventually published in Britain. Salmon Courage (1983) and Thorns (1980) also engage the intersection of politics, language, and literary form; as does Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (1991) her narrative of a metaphoric return to Africa.

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