I Called It Swimming by Lorraine Henrie Lins

“Lorraine Henrie Lins starts off her mesmerizing poetry cycle in the water, then goes to the safety of dry land, only to end with a poem about bluefish, as if to tell us that emergence out of one element to another is like a metamorphosis. This amazing book creates a synthesis between land and sea, desire and conformity. It’s like she opens the windows of her life to let you look at her struggles to remain whole, and then closes them gently, so as not to get dust in your eye. It’s a brave, guided tour of her world. Lins is the new docent of poetry – she has the talent to make her experience sound new.”

–Hal Sirowitz, Former Poet Laureate of Queens, NY and author of: Mother Said, Father Said and Before, During and After

In “Wound” Lorraine Henrie Lins writes, “We speak casually/ as if the gape/ wasn’t visible.” I Called It Swimming recognizes that to be human is to bear scars and rejoices in the fact that language is one of the body’s ways – and the mind’s – to live with our wounds. This brave book tells us stories in a voice that is so unassuming, so engagingly confidential that its readers will come to feel that they have known the speaker a long time. Because Lorraine Henrie Lins trusts us, we trust her and are willing to risk what she risks: laughter and wonder, grief and celebration. We put our faith in her and in poetry as together we explore the great mysteries of life. Before we realize it, we are in deep water but not alone. That is one of the joys of poetry; it invites us to jump in, over our heads, and then it teaches us not just how to stay afloat but how to stretch our muscles, how to splash and dive and rise back to the surface; in other words how to be fully alive. You are in good company when you read this book.

–Christopher Bursk