In a clear-cut voice "as simple as ink," Mathias Svalina's The Wine-Dark Sea vocalizes the urge to write oneself alive. Through this lyric journal of taut poems, each titled "The Wine-Dark Sea," Svalina breathes life into overlooked places: the driveway a car turns into at the end of a workday, how a tree holds the dirt, the edge of a page on which "I'd always assumed / I'd die alone." Every poem is a baffled drop, a pulse trying not to be dead, and...

"In Wastoid’s dystopian landscape of desire, lovers love trampolines, lamp-makers, the sound of cars driving in the rain, anonymous tips that send innocent men to the electric chair, toil, silence, etc. Tender & nonsensical, foolish & profound, Svalina explores love’s endless variety & illogical boundaries. Merging renaissance sonnet traditions with the serial explorations of Cortazar & Calvino, Wastoid speaks of love & pain & ecstatic failure,...

"The poems in this anthology hold true to mountain culture's strong story telling tradition, relating both the toil and the serenity of life lived on hill farms, in coal mining camps, and in small rural towns"--Provided by publisher.