When We Almost Drowned

When We Almost Drowned contains award winning poems that grapple with issues of family and love, sisters and parents. The speakers in these poems see the joys and ravages of love and life as well as the humor in all.

"In "Triggers," Jessica Barksdale lists: 'Anything that lives and then dies. Anything in its dead state. Anything while it is alive." When We Almost Drowned is a pitch-perfect exploration of  "the ugly dream/ of the world" that cannot be ignored and the beauty that is "almost unbearable to watch." These deft poems witness, open-eyed and open-hearted, all of it: our capacity for pain, our capacity for joy, and our ability to hold seemingly endless amounts of both."

- Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones and The Well Speaks of its Own Poison