The Drowning Book

The uttering of painful secrets wash upon the shoreline of The Drowning Book's poems, and sometimes memory is a wreck smashed beyond recognition. Half-promise and half-prayer, The Drowning Book is meditative, nostalgic, and personally-reflective at first. But as water cannot be contained when it continues to overflow a vessel, the collection becomes a larger petition. It is a baptismal ritual, a beckoning to others to be cleansed and submerged alike. Drawing from the "drowned" voices of silenced minorities, strangers, forgotten ancestors, and even the child-self, Cristina J. Baptista crafts a personal voice with all-too-familiar, universal feelings rising to the surface. Indeed, this collection is a celebration of what has sunk beneath the surface of history and what is worth preserving. Each line lifts a moment, memory, or message once thought inconsequential from a watery grave and breathes new life into its lungs. In particular, the voices of women are echoed here, resolutely and hauntingly, as if bubbling up from some sea-chamber like tempting sirens unaware of their power. Newspaper headlines find footing among the skipping stones of childhood observations. Biblical allusions wrap around pop culture stories. Discussions between parents and children draw readers from the oftentimes magnificently threatening natural world into the no-less ambiguous domestic sphere. Every poem is like a rock ready to be lifted, a little life beneath waiting to be prodded, examined, and discussed. Ultimately, The Drowning Book invites readers to dwell in the dark possibility that to drown in new discoveries and recollections alike may mean to linger and look with more discerning eyes. It is a collection about memory and questions-a collection interested in provoking honest confessions from its readers. If The Drowning Book feels like a confrontation, it is-one that offers a watery mirror into which readers are invited to stare and consider the reflection of themselves.