In Relation to the Surface

M. B. Powell's poems surge with salty waves, plunge into the perilous fathoms of love and rock the reader with a steady, rhythmic cadence. Powell harnesses the power of rhyme and repetition to illustrate the push and pull of the natural world and the inner self. In Relation to the Surface is a collection that highlights quiet female struggles beneath cool exteriors. Girls and women populate these poems-Shirley Temple, Ovid's Daphne, Mrs. America, widows, and dolls with "their hard little eyes." Readers of this dynamic book will have a sense of standing on a swaying ship deck, contemplating the past, "the tide dissolving to zero speed, /no silt rising from a roiling seabed, /soon . . . slipping into slack water."

-Paige Riehl, author of Suspension (Terrapin Books, 2018), Poetry Editor of Midway Journal

In Relation to the Surface guides us on a tour below, near, on, and above many places-the sea, the earth, a Siberian lake, I-5, slack water, and our own psyches-and depicts women as far-flung as Shirley Temple, the mythological Daphne and Diana, "women on beaches," and the Mona Lisa. On every page, M. B. Powell rewards her readers. The images and ideas are fresh, and the word choice startlingly perfect (most notably, the "crucifixion underwear" a young girl remembers from the Easter celebrations of her childhood). This is a collection you will want to read again and again. Powell is a master of language, and these poems are delightfully complex; readers will spend time below the surface and rise to new heights of delight in this gorgeously crafted poetry of our age.

-Susan Delaney Spear, author of Beyond All Bearing (Wipf and Stock, 2018), Managing Editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism, and Reviews