Waterbaby

In her astounding third collection, Nikki Wallschlaeger turns to waterthe natural element of griefto trace historys interconnected movements through family, memory, and day-to-day survival.Waterbabyis a book about Blackness, language, and motherhood in America; about the ancestral joys and sharp pains that travel together through the nervous systems crowded riverways; about the holy sanctuary of the bathtub for a spirit thats pushed beyond exhaustion. Waterbaby sings the blues in every key, as Wallschlaeger uses her vibrant lexicon and varied rhythms to condense and expand emotion, hurry and slow meaning, communicating the profound simultaneity of righteous dissatisfaction with an unjust world, and radical love for whats possible.

4/6/21