Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water

E. Hughes’ poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Poet Lore, Indiana Review, and Gulf Coast Magazine—among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. In 2021, they received their MFA+MA from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Currently, Hughes is a PhD student in Philosophy at Emory University studying black aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism.

• BLACK WOMEN STANDING ANKLE-DEEP IN PACIFIC WATER1I RAN UNTIL I COULD NO LONGERAFTER A BEATING RIPPLING THROUGH THE DARKPORTRAIT OF MY FATHERTRIPTYCHRUPTURE IN MEMORYEVEN NOWNEGLECT OR BAPTISM LISTICLEI CALLED HOME IN JANUARY BECKWOURTH PASS AS HER FEET TAP THE BRASS PEDALSAPORIA2THE ACCOUNTS OF MAMMY PLEASANT3 HISTORIOGRAPHY MEET CUTE IN REDWOOD CITYBAD HABITMUST HAVE LEFT ITS MARK—ROUTINEBARBERSHOPMEET CUTE IN MENLO PARKMY MOTHER AT TWENTY-ONETHE NIGHT IS AN ERUPTION OF NEBULAS HUSBAND HOME FROM THE MARINES FAMILY LOREFUNERALIN SAN JOSE, WE SLICED TOMATOESELEGY EVEN NOW—FORGIVENESS PANTOUMIN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF HOME, THE ROADOUR PAST BOWED LIKE THE BRANCHES OF A MADRONE TREEEPILOGUE BIRTHS AND DEATHS: A CHRONOLOGYNOTES

"Sorting through the wreckage of personal and collective history, Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water neutralizes what might otherwise haunt and destroy. Hughes does the work of all great poets: holds the truths of love and pain, letting both live in the light."—Kemi Alabi, author of Against Heaven "Hughes looks with clear-eyes at human frailty and failure, asks questions that lead readers to ponder their own archives of memory. Poignant, vividly imagined, and wise, Hughes’ Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water reminds us that “we can’t dwell on the past. . .God will turn us to salt if we look back at everything we’ve lost or never had.”—Janice N. Harrington, author of Yard Show "This is family shoved into the glaring light of memory, where a troubled lineage is laid bare in tender, audacious lyric. So many writers are terrified to trouble the past and risk unearthing themselves. That’s a terror Hughes has conquered in this pained and imperative work."—Patricia Smith, author of Unshuttered: Poems