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Splashed Things
“In my new life, I must learn everything again,” begins Splashed Things, Leigh Lucas’s dark humored and deeply moving debut that examines the chaotic terrain of grief following the suicide of a former boyfriend. With startling honesty and emotional precision, these poems tell the story of a woman in her twenties navigating loss, from the funeral service and her dead-end job, to her therapist’s office and the subways of New York City, revealing the way her beloved’s death infiltrates every corner of her life.
The speaker searches for traces of the departed in unlikely places—the physics of splashes, the history of seasickness, the science of depression—while confronting the limitations of elegy and the futility of trying to contain sorrow in words. Splashed Things is not a neat arc toward healing, but a testimony to the unwieldy shape of mourning and the persistence of love in its wake.
Selected by Maya C. Popa as winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize for its emotional courage, inventive language, and haunting beauty, Leigh Lucas’s Splashed Things marks the arrival of a powerful new voice in contemporary poetry.
The speaker searches for traces of the departed in unlikely places—the physics of splashes, the history of seasickness, the science of depression—while confronting the limitations of elegy and the futility of trying to contain sorrow in words. Splashed Things is not a neat arc toward healing, but a testimony to the unwieldy shape of mourning and the persistence of love in its wake.
Selected by Maya C. Popa as winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize for its emotional courage, inventive language, and haunting beauty, Leigh Lucas’s Splashed Things marks the arrival of a powerful new voice in contemporary poetry.
- GenresPoetry
82 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 7, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 6, 2026
"Not to preserve him exactly.
Not to forget. Eye pits, no eyes.
Maybe the aim is just to come out from living in this room between he and not-he."
This is a striking collection of essayistic poems orbiting grief, and a kind of rebirth, all the more forceful for their spareness. By leaning into a journalistic mode that favors internal monologue and avoids narration, I felt this is a book as much in conversation with the poetry of Sarah Mancuso and Anne Carson as it is the prose of Jenny Offill and Michael Ondaatje. A powerful and propulsive read.
Not to forget. Eye pits, no eyes.
Maybe the aim is just to come out from living in this room between he and not-he."
This is a striking collection of essayistic poems orbiting grief, and a kind of rebirth, all the more forceful for their spareness. By leaning into a journalistic mode that favors internal monologue and avoids narration, I felt this is a book as much in conversation with the poetry of Sarah Mancuso and Anne Carson as it is the prose of Jenny Offill and Michael Ondaatje. A powerful and propulsive read.
Review of advance copy
Splashed Things holds tremendous power, humor, and hope as it plunges into the seemingly unfathomable depths of grief. Here, Lucas creates an original taxonomy to hold, analyze, and even metabolize those depths, dexterously knowing when and how to resurface or shift that taxonomy to mirror the speaker’s processing. This book is an intimate and vulnerable testament to the impacts of mental health and how love survives, however fragmented at times, even after loss. Beautiful.
Review of advance copy received from Author
An extraordinary, heartbreaking journey, and a book to share with anyone who is grieving or understands what it means to lose someone you love. Lucas is an incredible writer and I loved this book so much.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Beautifully rendered. This book breaks my heart while making me laugh. I can’t wait to return to it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews