At Sea

“To set adrift in the symphony of Aïcha Martine Thiam’s poetry collection, AT SEA, is to wade into the personal mythology of irised terrains, passions, emotions, and perceptions of an agile, luminescent mind. Rapt with the desire for love, for life— from the prosaic to the sacred— Thiam radiates deep knowing and resonance. Exploring the joys and anguish of being a woman of color in a world that habitually exiles and others, the speaker discerns: 'Brown girl: you don’t get a plot twist.' And yet these exquisite poems keep searching, building, transcending, like the tide— seeking some measure of justice, some grace— for the soul defies rote delineations. 'Heart lies in the dented hollow of my lung, skin / of solitude swathes the body like a sheet, and / I cherish the steady cadence of my bone,' there is rapturous might in these pages.”  — Su Hwang, recipient of the Minnesota Book Awards in poetry and author of BODEGA 

 “AT SEA is a collection of poetry that explores the depth of grief, cultural identity, trauma and all of the emotions that come along with them. Just like a voyage on the ocean each page looms with magical moon— like wordcraft that pulls the tide. Some of these tides are contemplated in a slow rocking and others are tumultuous. Aïcha Martine Thiam uncovers the shipwrecks of sadness and despair with a deft hand and pulls us to the surface gasping for air. This book is a full fathom five into the sea change of human experience.” — Juliette van der Molen, author of Death Library; Mother, May I?; Anatomy of A Dress; and Confess: The Untold Story of Dorothy Good 

 “Aïcha Martine Thiam’s AT SEA pulsates with a magnetic, mercurial energy at its center as it takes its own advice to 'find your own language/make your grief sing.' These poems shapeshift, often channelling the mythic and elemental as it deftly interrogates themes of womanhood, trauma and cultural inheritance. The speaker of AT SEA refuses to look away. She holds a bright fury in her hands, a desire for redress and still, hope. 'Still yearning to be handled tenderly,' this is a collection that urges the reader too to handle ourselves and each other with a little more tenderness. Here is a collection unafraid to cast us adrift in turbulent waters, but always with a promise to reel us back in.” — Jihyun Yun, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and author of Some Are Always Hungry