The Drowning Book - by Cristina Baptista (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>Anchored in memory, The Drowning Book examines the dissociation between action and feeling, past and present. It is a questioning of faith and memory, and a reclaiming of human dignity and expression.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>The uttering of painful secrets wash upon the shoreline of The Drowning Book's poems, and sometimes memory is a wreck smashed beyond recognition. Half-promise and half-prayer, The Drowning Book is meditative, nostalgic, and personally-reflective at first. But as water cannot be contained when it continues to overflow a vessel, the collection becomes a larger petition. It is a baptismal ritual, a beckoning to others to be cleansed and submerged alike. Drawing from the "drowned" voices of silenced minorities, strangers, forgotten ancestors, and even the child-self, Cristina J. Baptista crafts a personal voice with all-too-familiar, universal feelings rising to the surface. Indeed, this collection is a celebration of what has sunk beneath the surface of history and what is worth preserving. Each line lifts a moment, memory, or message once thought inconsequential from a watery grave and breathes new life into its lungs. In particular, the voices of women are echoed here, resolutely and hauntingly, as if bubbling up from some sea-chamber like tempting sirens unaware of their power. Newspaper headlines find footing among the skipping stones of childhood observations. Biblical allusions wrap around pop culture stories. Discussions between parents and children draw readers from the oftentimes magnificently threatening natural world into the no-less ambiguous domestic sphere. Every poem is like a rock ready to be lifted, a little life beneath waiting to be prodded, examined, and discussed. Ultimately, The Drowning Book invites readers to dwell in the dark possibility that to drown in new discoveries and recollections alike may mean to linger and look with more discerning eyes. It is a collection about memory and questions--a collection interested in provoking honest confessions from its readers. If The Drowning Book feels like a confrontation, it is--one that offers a watery mirror into which readers are invited to stare and consider the reflection of themselves.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>A book of family, of daughters and mothers, of fathers and brothers, and, especially, of women defying and defiant, Cristina Baptista's <em>The Drowning Book </em>compels us to consider the fragility and resilience of human experience. Singularly voiced, these poems reckon with a world where "everything is a surface preparing / to break, a first time," and they go on to hope that, "in all breaking, something must grow." For all the devastation Baptista conjures and confronts in these poems, she also testifies to that which makes "each of us an heir to Icarus / falling as we dream // dreaming as we fall." Call it a fortunate fate that we might immerse ourselves in these poems: <em>The Drowning Book</em> is a marvelous debut.</p> <p> </p> <p>Jordan Windholz, author of <em>Other Psalms </em>(2015, University of North Texas Press; 2014 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry Winner): </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>Cristina Baptista's poems ripple with the most beautiful and haunting particulars. Her poems move through the world with clarity and compassion, showing us the universal joys and pains of being a human being in this raging century. <em>The Drowning Book</em> is a marvelous poetic achievement.</p> <p> </p> <p>Todd Colby, author of <em>Splash State</em> (2014, The Song Cave)</p> <p> </p><br>
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