The Drowning Book by Cristina J. Baptista

A book of family, of daughters and mothers, of fathers and brothers, and, especially, of women defying and defiant, Cristina Baptista’s The Drowning Book compels us to consider the fragility and resilience of human experience. Singularly voiced, these poems reckon with a world where “everything is a surface preparing / to break, a first time,” and they go on to hope that, “in all breaking, something must grow.” For all the devastation Baptista conjures and confronts in these poems, she also testifies to that which makes “each of us an heir to Icarus / falling as we dream // dreaming as we fall.” Call it a fortunate fate that we might immerse ourselves in these poems: The Drowning Bookis a marvelous debut.

–Jordan Windholz, author of Other Psalms (2015, University of North Texas Press; 2014 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry Winner)

Cristina Baptista‘s poems ripple with the most beautiful and haunting particulars. Her poems move through the world with clarity and compassion, showing us the universal joys and pains of being a human being in this raging century. The Drowning Book is a marvelous poetic achievement.

–Todd Colby, author of Splash State (2014, The Song Cave)