Reading Water: Poems

Framed by the death of the poet's mother, Reading Water begins by considering how love is born then bound by the bonds of family and friends. These poems undertake a restless search for a self under constant evolution. Grappling with grief, familial and romantic love, and art - using persona and ekphrasis, along with the traditional lyric - this debut collection addresses Dean Young's crucial question: "Who doesn't sense an unbridgeable alienation between ourselves and the world…That our poems speak to no one, not even fully to ourselves?" In response to this question, over and over again, Reading Water fords the distance that exists between sons, brothers, parents, friends, and lovers—giving voice to the what's unsayable in these relationships. In three sections, the book moves backwards through time, forming an arc that begins with loss, moving on to desire and a beloved, before concluding with propulsive pieces about art and ekphrasis. In these sections, the poet moves from a place of support and community to one of solitude. This collection considers how we are made, before thinking about what it takes to become a writer or artist, and if solitude is a prerequisite for creation. Images of water's ephemerality, what happens above and below its surface, thread Reading Water together. This collection finds kinship in the work of poets like Brenda Shaughnessy, Nick Flynn, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, Gail Mazur, and Alan Shapiro.