Stay Safe

by Emma Hine

At the center of this stellar collection are three sisters and their imaginative fear of grief. Their great-uncle was bitten by a shark, their mother has a brain tumor, their neighbor hangs himself from a tree--and to cope with these very real terrors, the oldest sister creates an intimate fantasy world. We hear stories of a mountain lion that slaughters a deer, a transparent body washed up on a beach, a selkie who ventures to shore and becomes their mother: "On land her pelt was heavy / like stewed velvet, so she taught herself / to take it off." The sisters' environment of ocean and sand, forests and farmhouses, forms a lush backdrop to many of these poems. But later, as the speaker ages, we find ourselves in the mountains, in an art museum, in a spacecraft where a recorded voice "has the soft accent of someone only a generation or two removed from Earth." The voice in these poems is the perfect mix of grief and imagination, quiet and explosion. Stay Safe is delicate and extraordinary, a powerful debut.

Genres: Poetry

87 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2021

Reviews

[Gail Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this is book. The poems are beautifully crafted and deeply felt. They will stay with me.

[Courtney Mosier Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clean and thoughtful poetry that kept me company on election night.

[Kathy Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

You couldn’t have a more timely title for a book released during a pandemic than Emma Hine’s poetry collection Stay Safe. And it’s the perfect book to curl up with these days because while there’s grief and a bit of terror in the poems there is also wonder, sometimes delivered in twists that take you to a completely unexpected and delightful place.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The fuselage burned so hot I could see right through / into the cockpit where a young woman sat / impossibly aflame, like a keyhole, or / an exit, or a torch into the tunnel-end of risk.” Emma Hine’s Stay Safe, a stellar (and interstellar) poetry collection, is brimming with dazzling insight amidst the most exquisitely composed writing. Several poems consider grief, loss, anguish, such as ‘Distortion for Afterward’: “The leaves tilted purple above him, / the earth a sick green”... “my furniture jolting inward, bumping me, / telling me to nail it to the walls.” There are selkies + house moves, shark bites + space colonies, three sisters holding one another close amidst a maelstrom of uncertainty, as love remains the vital binding agent: “want to say that together / we could be two words / the sort that hold hands / but still keep their original meanings / like life and boat”. In her wit and ingenuity she professes “I’m such a selfish little nation”, self-aware and self-deprecating with a light and subtle hand. Despite everything — the trauma, fear, discovery — the tone is sustainedly hopeful, Hine resolute: “And this is the world / my parents are finally proud to give me, / here in a tale where everybody lives”.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To stay human you have to remember everything we have left.” (67)

This is truly a stellar, mystifying collection of poetry that transports readers to far-off, imagined futures of fringe humanity while at the same time remains a very “present” reflection on the fleetingness of the human condition. It’s a mesmerizing blend of past and future, real and imaginary, grief and fear.

This nonlinear collection that is sometimes story, sometimes memory, and always introspective asks us to consider what is that connects us to each other and makes us human. Is it story? Is it memory? Is it a deeply embedded and terrible understanding that being human means always wondering?

Definitely recommend this profound and moving collection! I can’t say I’ve encountered poetry quite as whimsical yet eerie/unsettling as this collection?? It’s a careful line to walk and Hine makes it look horribly easy~

[Raven]

"I said/
she never meant to lose this. But she wanted/
to know what it felt like to be lost."

"I sat awake/
my robe on the hook now a lolling navy tongue,/
my furniture jolting inward, bumping me,/
telling me to nail it to the walls."

"They could see right through his body,/
the twin squids of his lungs filled with brine,/
his eel intestines, mollusk spleen."

"the frogs like small rocks clacking in the trees'/
throats."

[alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything I love about the fantasy genre so beautifully and meticulously interwoven into this cohesive, startlingly impactful collection.

Grief! Terror! Selkies! Icarus! Outerspace! Lots of falling!

Absolutely obsessed, I will be returning to this work often <3

[Jason Schwartzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This book is filled with precise, gorgeous language. It was powerful and memorable to be immersed in these stories and mythologies and images. I loved it.

[Beatrice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this was utterly amazing. She wrote the best generation ship narrative I’ve read in one poem.

[talia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a distinctly fairytale quality to Emma Hine's poetry--maybe it's the content (selkies, secret names, imagined worlds), maybe it's the cadence (lilting, rhythmic, delicate). Hine gently binds fantasy to her words, invites strange guests and eerie images into her domestic portraits, collides idyllic nature against its own dark variations. These are gorgeous poems, and they ache to be revisited again and again.

[Dottielobue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning

I love this book. It gave me tears, chills, and awe, and I know it will be one I return to again and again.