Page last updated: October 24, 2022
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BUOYANT
Poems by Rebekah Bloyd
“Rebekah Bloyd takes us on a wide-ranging, hydrological journey: her words—solid, fluid, vaporous—traversing a ‘globe without axis.’ She invites us into a liquid suspension inspired by science, paintings, photographs, and her own personal history. Unexpected connections link grounded detail—desert quail, Caribbean parrot fish, a plastic toy diver, Venus reflecting through smoky air—with ethereal explorations of childhood wonder, human longing, and silly joy. Like her wild Santa Cruz mountain turkeys wandering a canyon, Bloyd’s poems draw our rapt attention.”
—Ellen Orleans, author of Inside, The World Is Orange and Mother Blue & The Deep Down Under
“To read this radiant collection is to dive right into the waters of our shared planet Earth. Whether responding to the behavior of water, the epidemic of gun violence, or a social media text, Bloyd examines the spiritual energies that both connect and separate us from the natural world and from one another. Filled with compassion and mystery, Buoyant is a multilingual conversation that ultimately leaves the reader transformed, hopeful, and delighted to have taken the plunge.”
—Caroline Goodwin, author of Madrigals and Old Snow, White Sun
“From the first poem’s kinetic opening, ‘a field of children roars/into a seascape/swimming perpendicular’ to the last poem’s poignant ending, ‘Handsome, her hand on the world/burst/open/of its own accord’ the reader encounters precise, surprising imagery and form. Buoyant entwines stark truths about our planet and our lives, what we have lost—species, habitats, lovers, family—with joy at what we still have. A haibun about the devastating Dixie Fire in California offers ‘In the fine dirt of the campground’s ring road … bird tracks, loose-mesh patterns stamped.’ In this beautiful, haunting collection, ‘our planet is wide/as earth eggs, soil grubs, caterpillar, beetle … wide as cricket pulse/under night skies satellite saturated.’”
—Judith Serin, author of Gravity and Hiding in the World
REBEKAH BLOYD’s poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and translations with the Czech poet and immunologist Miroslav Holub have appeared in Harper’s, The London Times Literary Supplement, Field, Poetry, Catamaran, and elsewhere. A Fulbright Scholar in Jamaica and in the Czech Republic, and the recipient of Hedgebrook Residencies, she teaches writing and ecological practices at California College of the Arts. Rebekah lives in Northern California.