Cry Back My Sea: 48 Poems in 6 Waves

By Sarah Arvio

Book Overview

Stunning poems of obsession, loss, and the desire for a renewed self, from the award-winning poet

"I thought I had left behind the darkness / of the heart," Arvio confesses in the poem "Small War." The love Arvio traces in these pages is indeed a battle, one in which the best-laid plans are shattered. Rarely has a poet tackled intimate love with so much invention and bravery.

In poem after poem, we meet the troubling lover whose nearness and force undoes her. There are moments of reprieve: "my naked body and budding pleasure / in the weather of your presence. / Not whether your presence but how." The voice is vulnerable, self-knowing, often funny; the poet seems to be writing these poems to save herself from a devastating passion. Her weapons are a cascade of brash, freely spoken lines and a powerful command of metaphor, wielded in a search for meaning and understanding.

These breathtaking love poems make the collection Arvio's most universal to date.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593319508
• ISBN13: 9780593319505
• Release Date: August 2021
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.9" x 9.2"