At Sea

AT SEA is a collection that - at times introspective and confessional, at times perceptively aimed outward, toward a vertiginous world - sails the pathway between trauma and healing. Readers are taken aboard into a microcosm where wonder meets waterlogged torment and self-harm; where grief, euphoria and longing coexist; where womanhood is as joyful and dizzying an experience as it is searing; where peeling the layers of cultural identity is like plunging into the most opaque and briny deep. While the act of remembering has solitary, melancholy tinges, Aïcha Martine Thiam's pen never wavers, nor does it stray far from the impulse to bear witness, to do justice, and to connect with kindred souls. PRAISE FOR AT SEA "AT SEA is Aïcha Martine Thiam's sublime siren's song of the emerging self. The verse drifts dexterously from treading water, "a fish in your sea" to the triumphant thrash of the "pirate mermaid" who navigates and narrates her own divine depths." -Kristin Garth, author of Girlarium and Editor-in-Chief of Pink Plastic House "A heartfelt, humorous, open-ended discussion about what it means to be a Black woman in the world today. I felt so seen within the pages of AT SEA, that I oftentimes had to look through the pages to see if Thiam had dedicated this book to me. Wonderful. Just wonderful." -Katherine D. Morgan, Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus and author of No Self-Respecting Woman "Aïcha Martine rejects the cultural expectations that dictate what her story as a Black girl should be. In AT SEA, she tells her own coming-of-age story, unraveling trauma and exploring healing with all their nuance and complexity. AT SEA grapples with grief, disillusionment, and being forced to grow up too quickly and reaches for moments of childlike wonder. Aïcha Martine creates her own mythology complete with Bluebeard and mermaids and sailors. She fluidly slips between poetry and prose as she rewrites her story, imagining all the ways it could be. You can hear the rhythm and musicality of her poetry as lines echo into refrains, as she returns to a familiar line, only to twist it and imbue it with new meaning. Aïcha Martine finds liberty in her voice in AT SEA." -Carolina VonKampen, Publisher and Editor in Chief of Capsule Stories "Dizzying, perplexing, delightful lines, brimming with glimpses from a nimble mind. I can't read these poems quickly. Can I take my time? I love, and I understand, how this poet leaps at us, arms wide ("Always, I get operatic."), and then retreats, self-doubting ("How can I trust the triteness of my senses?"). She's like your smartest, funniest, oddest friend, the one you always want more of, the one whose place you long to visit (too often? You'll bring wine), and sigh into her couch and ask her, again, "Will you show me what you're writing?"" -Ellen Parker, founder and Editor-in-Chief of FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry