Ocean Currents by Hannah Rousselot

“no one is here but my want and my want and 

no ocean is big enough for that.”

Ocean Currents is a collection of poems that are immediately relatable, and tinged with waves of profound sadness. Rousselot deftly explores the depth of depression and the small cruelties of the world with lonely imagery and gorgeous metaphor. Each poem melds seamlessly into the next, telling a story of a girl who often feels hopelessness, fear, and anger, but who still sees profound beauty, and is still here.

 –Mela Blust – Author of skeleton parade and they found a woman’s body

In Rousselot’s Ocean Currents, the world unpeels around us as the speaker witnesses their own psyche. Not only does Rousselot take on the language of possibility in her work, but she also tackles mental illness incisively, showing how vulnerability can be both a triumph and an act of violence. Throughout her collection, Rousselot illuminates how even our innermost senses of trust can be breached: “even now, / I can’t trust my own perception of my hurt.”

–Samantha Fain, author of Coughing Up Planets