AT SEA

by Aïcha Martine Thiam

AT SEA is a collection that - at times introspective and confessional, at times perceptively aimed outward, toward a vertiginous world - sails the pathway between trauma and healing. Readers are taken aboard into a microcosm where wonder meets waterlogged torment and self-harm; where grief, euphoria and longing coexist; where womanhood is as joyful and dizzying an experience as it is searing; where peeling the layers of cultural identity is like plunging into the most opaque and briny deep. While the act of remembering has solitary, melancholy tinges, Aïcha Martine Thiam's pen never wavers, nor does it stray far from the impulse to bear witness, to do justice, and to connect with kindred souls.

102 pages, Paperback

Published September 21, 2021

Reviews

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the honor of providing a blurb for this poetry collection! Aïcha Martine rejects the cultural expectations that dictate what her story as a Black girl should be. In AT SEA, she tells her own coming-of-age story, unraveling trauma and exploring healing with all their nuance and complexity. AT SEA grapples with grief, disillusionment, and being forced to grow up too quickly and reaches for moments of childlike wonder. Martine creates her own mythology complete with Bluebeard and mermaids and sailors. She fluidly slips between poetry and prose as she rewrites her story, imagining all the ways it could be. You can hear the rhythm and musicality of her poetry as lines echo into refrains, as she returns to a familiar line, only to twist it and imbue it with new meaning. Aïcha Martine finds liberty in her voice in AT SEA.