watery through the gaps

by Emma Blas

"A compelling collection that slips between the crevices of the skin and buries itself into your bones." 'Watery Through the Gaps' is a book for those waking to the realisation that there is more outside than just us. It is for those of us who long to bridge the chasm between the human and earth experience. These poems are stepping stones leading us through the water. Following the river will lead us home and we will never be alone again. In Emma Blas' second collection of poems, she invites you into dialogue with the sea, taking you into the depths and leaving you wondering whether you can trust the current. Despite the terrifying tug of the undertow, we are exactly where we are meant to be. If you like poetry that ripples through the depths of the self, against the mirror of the natural world, this book is for you. “This book is as arresting as it is elegantly carved. there's a power behind Emma Blas' words. That power is Gaia." Atulya K Bingham, author of Dirt Witch.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 28, 2021

Reviews

[Emma Blas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so excited to share this collection of poems with you!

[Diedra Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poetry blew past every expectation I had. It reached past my walls, tore into me, and forced me to feel things I close away. Everything amazing poetry should be.

It took me longer to read than I planned, but only because I had to take breaks every twenty pages or so. Words that reach in deep make you stop and think, reflect on your feelings, consider your reactions, and they wear you out faster than those that don't delve so far within.

According to my kindle, I highlighted 27 different passages in this book. My normal average is zero. I wish I could list them all, but here are a couple of favorites:

"It's been too long since I've stood at the shoreline;
even so, I find the ocean's voice
in the gray stillness of the morning -
the way faucet water runs over
my knuckles reminds me
how I once held the waves"

"and I am too afraid to call out,
for what if my body finds a new way to breathe
and jumps out
through my open mouth?"

"as fresh onion,
fleshy under the brown paper-bag lining,
for the carrying
has peeled it through"

Inside, you'll find poems that are mostly lyrical verse, which is my favorite, and focusing heavily on water themes. The tone is emotional and powerful, but focused on connecting with nature, being, and belonging. The message is generally positive, more often hopeful than hopeless, and more often about belonging than loneliness. I think that most people would find at least one poem in this collection to connect with.

On that note, this is not a short collection. It's a lengthy romp through a series of nature and water based illusions, imaginings, and explorations. I'm not sure what the exact count is, but I know it feels like a lot. I know for certain I'm going to be buying her other book of poetry as well, because she's clearly one of my new favorites. You should give this set of poems of chance if you want to share time and space with another mind that enjoys nature and the interdependence of everything in our universe.

[Linda Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of watery poems.

Watery Through the Gaps is an intense, textured and captivating collection that I really enjoyed. It’s not actually an easy read, making Emma Blas’ words all the more powerful because the reader needs to concentrate, to read and reread just to scratch the surface of these multi-layered and beautifully written poems. Images and meanings swirl like the sea’s tides and I have no idea if my interpretation and responses are what the author intended, but I found this entire collection utterly fascinating. I think Watery Through the Gaps epitomises the power of poetry as the reader can bring their own meanings to the work, making it a very personal reading experience.

As Watery Through the Gaps might suggest, water, and especially the sea, is a recurring image in the writing. It’s frequently destructive or obfuscating as the poet comes to terms with her identity and sense of loss, but water here also reminded me of birth, creation and possibility so that amongst the bleakness there is hope in wonderful writing. Similarly, there are iterative images of burning and conflagration so that Watery Through The Gaps feels nuanced and balanced.

I loved the physical representation of many of the poems on the page because that representation illustrated meaning so effectively. The lack of upper case letters, especially a capital I, suggested to me the poet’s loss of, and search for, identity, as did the fragmentation of some of the work on the page. That said, I was also reminded of the patterns of the ocean and the boundless nature of the sea where poems meandered across the white space in wavelike patterns. I also found a disturbing sense of suffocation, as if the poet feels she is unable to express her innermost thoughts and emotions, displayed through images of stopping up a mouth. At the same time, Emma Blas explores the relentless and voracious appetite of humanity as it consumes the natural world. Emma Blas employs natural images with sensitivity so that even something small like an ant becomes an effective metaphor for life – or indeed, for destruction, as one of the themes in Watery Through the Gaps is the impact humans have on the planet.

I’m not entirely sure I’ve done justice to Watery Through the Gaps as a reader. I found the collection affecting, moving and thought-provoking, but I fear I have only scratched the surface of the collection’s potential. This is no criticism of the writer, but of my own inability fully to appreciate the nuances of the writing and the range of themes to discover. I shall be returning to Watery Through the Gaps on many occasions in the future as I thought it was excellent and it keeps calling to me.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several books that I have read recently have pointed out the obvious point that we are as much a part of this watery blue planet and its ecosystem as it is part of us. Over the pandemic many people have discovered or rediscovered the natural world and felt how just being in a woodland or near a river can help in so many ways. I spend a number of evenings walking down to the river, sometimes to watch the sun go down, or see if I can see the otters or sometimes just to watch the water flow under the bridge.

This new collection by Emma Blas is her conversations with the watery world that she wants us to start to correspond with too. They are poems that are drawn deep from her heart as she looks to the ocean for comfort and peace. In some she slings her anger deep into the cool silky water which absorbs and tempers her, the saline swell calm her boiling mind.

i will swap this ravens call
for a ride
on the wing of a gull
let this voice soften
salt and brined
to a howl for the moon

She finds herself at sunset, hoping to blend and blur with the sky and join the edge of the sunset. Her church is the ocean, a place that she holds dear and some of the poems reflect that spiritual side of her engagement with it. But there is anger in these words too, anger at the injustice in the world.

i have never tried
to hold something
so fluid as a river
Yet it feels more in my reach
than trying to grasp
what it means to be human

This is quite an emotional collection, Blas is baring her inner soul in a lot of the poems. From mourning not being near the shore for a long time to contemplating the vastness of the sky and counting the reasons why she cannot be loved. To Ripple is such a short poem, and yet full of profound mean about how we deal with relationships. As with any collection, there were a couple that I didn’t like, but overall I thought that this was a good collection.

Four Favourite Poems
In the Shadows
How High Will I Rise
The Edge of Moonlight
Worn Hollow

[Trevor Stubbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something to dip into. Think about. Address the questions set. An ongoing read.

[Cynthia Schaefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book! Definitely one of the best poetry books I have ever read. Emma’s poetry is raw and deeply felt. Loved it!

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Watery Through the Gaps’ invites the reader to resonate with the deep blue terrain that is the urgent, seductive lyricism of poet Emma Blas, and surrender to the forces of nature that guide her words of loss, reverence and empowerment. This is a collection of poems that is simply captivating; the lucid imagery and smooth movement from one piece to the next is wholly compelling. The structure of these “songs of the sea” (as Blas refers to them in the book’s Foreword) is further subtly divided into what the sea heard, saw, knew, said and did. Under the vast sky, in the shallows, at the river’s edge, or fighting the storm and winds, Blas’ “glass sings / whether the glass / is empty / or full”.

The unity and quality of this, her second volume of poetry, creates a seamless and poignant tapestry that entrances and propels one through a watery world of shimmering chiaroscuro. Just as the poet has turned to the primal power of the sea for inspiration and as an actual place of solace and anchoring in her time of personal grief, amidst the global calamities of virus and climate, so too may we turn to Blas’ words and this mesmerising body of work for both enrichment and articulation of the soul and senses. In both its defiance and acceptance of the undertow, ‘Watery Through the Gaps’ succeeds in immersing the reader in a tacit refuge of healing, an exquisite depth of feeling – leaving one with the understated beauty of life’s ebb and flow.

[Amy Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just completed my first reading of Watery Through the Gaps.
having made 19 notes on my kindle
earmarking words,
phrases,
lines,
at times whole poems,
that swam into my soul
and
stirred it.
How lovely
to be in union with another's thoughts and words
in such a way
that they make a delicious soup with your own juices;
nourishing a place inside
that you don't often know is starving
until it tastes
from the words of another
in such a way.

Emma’s poetry is all at once lovely lilting words echoing nature’s nuances and raw with knowing; nibbling at the hurt and scabbed places in us all with her willful words and soulful queries.

This volume is deep with ravines only the waters of grief can carve, yet she does not abandon you to wander alone. Her words bring you along in kinship with the sea as you see, hear, know, say and do alongside the author as she tries to make sense of her/our profound emotions through the cycles of life.
Emma’s words will find you wherever you are, but this volume has much to offer those who find themselves searching for meaning and solace in life’s transitions during this changing, challenging time.
As one of her poems begins...
“In the end isn’t it all about learning how to let ourselves ripple....”
Well done, emma.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
Seas, skies alongside yearning and trying to see clearly - quite unexpectedly beautiful in places and a really enjoyable collection that I could often completely relate to. Some gorgeous stand out poems, with such evocative titles, including:
- When tides rise, islands sink
- From water to stone
- Bare and bold as sand
- This poem wants to be a bit savage

“The second of five elemental poetry books in conversation with the natural world?” Oh, I can easily get on board with that...!

*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily*

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Blas writes poetry that is all power and poise. It is precise and poignant. Beauty bathed in something both soft and still, yet capable of leaving you breathless. She is a master of using nature themes to evoke emotion that you didn’t even know you were capable of feeling. In her second book, watery between the gaps, she once again delivers a compelling collection that slips between the crevices of the skin and buries itself into your bones. It is both dark and light, brilliantly weaving the two into a masterpiece that leaves you wanting more of her exquisite lines.

[GothicGiggleCiCi · Rating 5 out of 5]

First impression: The cover artwork was simple and beautiful and I loved the hues of the blues.

Pros: I enjoyed every aspect of this collection. The organization/stylization of the poems and the profound relationship between self and the earth were beautifully interwoven. I appreciate poetry that’s unapologetically vulnerable and I found that in ‘Watery Through the Gaps.’ Each poem flowed effortlessly into the next which made the reading experience all the more lovely.

Cons: none (only that it ended).

Overall Thoughts: A beautiful poetry addition that explores life’s sometimes cruel, sometimes beautiful, sometimes somewhere in between uncertainties.

Rating: 5 ⭐️

** I received a complimentary copy of this book via BookSirens and am leaving this review voluntarily**

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first extraordinary thing to note in this special book of poetry by a poet living in Spain is her absolute commitment to avoiding the use of capital letters. Thus is every word through out this volume of poems given equal value and weight, the beginning is not emphasized, though each piece is neatly stopped. It explores the “depths of emotions” to be found in the elements of the edge between water and land, but also the bodies not only of human beings but creatures of the land. It seeks to convey to the reader the flow of life in those watery zones that we are all familiar with, the tidal, the movement and contrasting solidity of sand, the movement through and alongside the body. It seeks to paint pictures of the solid and the liquid, the way they change and evolve, the variation between bodies and how they move. This is a book of poetry of the elemental, the basic, sometimes elegant, sometimes deliberately shocking. It is both intensely personal and yet also for everyone and everything, holding that contradictory balance in tension. It looks at, according to the author’s own words, the “crossing points between the physical, psychological and imagined states of life” in poetry, a high aspiration for a book which is difficult to define and describe. I was intrigued to have the opportunity to read and review this unusual book.
“salivate” is a poem which runs through with one of the significant motifs of the writing, The tongue. Here it is described in terms of the tongue of dogs, or cats, wet, or dry. “your tongue will be wet until you forget what it is to taste life” the poem asserts. In contrast, in “too big to swallow” the first line observes “I have a fat tongue swelling with a force, until it fills my mouth”. The piece “all those little big things” observes “it is said to be the strongest muscle in the body”. It is an element that genuinely struck me as I read through the poems, aware of the watery theme but also of the more mundane words that linger in the mind and memory.
The use of unusual words, such as “waterrise” stops and challenges thoughts, as this collection goes far beyond descriptions of land and sea, water and air. “the flag-less pole” looks at a flag pole bereft of a flag, or the noise that it would create, yet it is still worthy of watching, of listening “to your song with the sea”.
It is difficult to convey the senses, themes and subjects contained and conveyed by this collection of poems with their diverse references, words and images. The overall impression is of a skillful arrangement of ideas which challenges and confronts, remembers and awakens new interest in the both mundane, and things on the edge of understanding. Most pieces are intense, all are impressive, and all will linger in the mind and memory of anyone encountering this special book.

[Lubomira Kourteva · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Watery Through the Gaps" is a precious gem to be truly treasured. I absolutely loved reading this second stunning poetry collection from Emma Blas; she is a truly talented writer who knows how to fill readers’ hearts with love. The poems are lyrical, masterfully woven, sincerely written and emotionally moving; they offer an incredible range of poetic forms while they sing unsparingly and beautifully their powerful weight. Like water they flow and dive deep; in weeping while trusting, in wailing while singing, they hold a life itself. This beautiful book is a precious gem to be truly treasured, and I can’t wait for more of her books to come for the author is a precious gem herself.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma’s work is well-crafted and beautiful. This collection takes the reader on a gorgeous journey and provides incredible opportunity for both introspection and entertainment. The way she connects the human experience and nature is brilliant.