Meltwater: Poems

by Claire Wahmanholm

A haunting collection that inhabits a disquieting future where fear is the governing body, “the organ and the tissue / and the cell, the membrane and the organelle.” 

“Once there were oarfish, opaleyes, olive flounders. Once the oxbows were not overrun with nitrogen.” Part requiem, part bedtime story, Meltwater narrates the awful possibility of doom as well as the grim temptation to numb ourselves to it. Prose poems melt into erasures, erasures swell into lush catalogs. Within this formal ebb and flow, Claire Wahmanholm explores both abundance and annihilation, giving shape and music to our shared human anxieties. What does it mean to bring children into a world like this one? A world where grenades are “the only kind of fruit we can still name”? Where “lightning can strike over / and over without boredom or belief and nothing / is saved”? Where losses, both ecological and personal, proliferate endlessly? 


Here, a parent’s joy is accompanied by the gnaw of remorse. And yet, Wahmanholm recognizes, children bind us to the world—to its missiles and marvels, to the possibility that there is indeed grace worth “suffer[ing] the empty universe for.”


If we are going to worry, let us also at least wonder. If we are going to be seized by terror, let us also be “seized by the topaz sky and the breeze through it.” A glittering, kinetic testament to vanishing—of biodiversity, of climate stability, of a sense of safety—Meltwater is both vindication and balm.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 14, 2023

About the author

Claire Wahmanholm received her BA from UW-Madison, her MFA from the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD from the University of Utah. Her chapbook, Night Vision, won the 2017 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest. Her debut full-length collection, Wilder (Milkweed Editions), won the 2018 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 Minnesota Book Award. Her second collection, Redmouth, was published with Tinderbox Editions in 2019. Her third collection, Meltwater, was published through Milkweed Editions in 2023. A 2020 McKnight Writing Fellow, her poems have most recently appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Descant, Good River Review, Image, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Grist, RHINO, and The Los Angeles Review. She lives and teaches in the Twin Cities.

Reviews

[Anna Reeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes the stars align and it’s just a kill shot. I’m ded with admiration for what this book tried, and what it did. Sorry for the violent metaphor, but if there’s one thing this book is about, it’s about death and grief and violence—both the violence of human imprint and pollution, and the violent way our ecologies are adjusting to climate change and careless development. It’s also about motherhood, the evolutionary fear that parents are dunked in (and sometimes drown in) as they scan their environment for danger and the intrusive, violent thoughts that our brains use to help us prevent catastrophe.

These poems are profoundly grievous, grief-stricken, full of terror, and the eco-grief and parental grief and fears are articulated so well that—truly—I wept through half the book. Don’t let that deter you. I wasn’t ready to cry, I thought I was going to be reading a book about eco-grief and climate change, which yes does make me cry sometimes but I set myself up in my shade garden on a gorgeous day with a cup of coffee and was ready to be sandblasted by some tragedy but keep a critical distance. Reader: the critical distance vaporized.

Eco-grief and grief for loss within a family, with ongoing trauma, and a sense of being inside—not at all past—an enormous dislocation is a lot, but the poems keep you close, and you feel welcomed, without the book sacrificing anything on the altar of sentimentality. Of course, Wahmanholm is a great poet, and there’s not a hint of sentimentality (this is what I call language that is turned outward in an attempt to evoke emotion—hard to describe, but you know it when you see it). I guess you could call these poems intimate, although they also have a large scope. Each poem grasps looks down a crevasse of loss, sometimes in a very simple way (incredible prose poems based on a letter of the alphabet), sometimes within a very skillfully-wrought structure—like a series of erasure poems. Cont. in comments!

I have never read more devastating poems about ecological (or parental) disaster, or the intrusive thoughts that come with certain kinds of motherhood mental spaces. I recognized my own catastrophic thinking in them, both in my mother-self and my eco-grief. What good is catastrophic thinking? Partly, it’s an evolutionary tool to help us save ourselves. What if you already are suffering from these thoughts, yourself? Do you need to also READ POEMS about them? Possibly not! However, one of poetry’s greatest gifts is connecting two people who don’t know each other, but who suffer in the same way. The spark that is made there, with the “I thought I was the only one,” has the power to ignite a flame.

[Shilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection so much & I highly recommend it. It's thick with the grief of extinction.

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best collections I've read this year! Formally astute, exquisite details, wise, wondering, and yet full of grief and love and fury. If you're looking for your next ecopoetic read, it's this.

[Emily Warfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A devastating meditation on grieving a dying world and a dying child

[Stephanie M. Wytovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this is one of my favorite poetry collections now…

[Riya B · Rating 3 out of 5]

genuinely probably one of the worst poetry collections i've read

there's beautiful language but the author tried to combine too many themes into one book and didn't tie them in with each other enough- it didn't feel like a cohesive collection rather just a bunch of poems spliced and put together

2/5 stars

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a beautiful and heartbreaking collection of poems about grief, family, nature, and climate change. I'm glad I decided to check this out from the library.

[Ryleigh Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

wahmanholm has a unique relationship with sound and does a brilliant job connecting sonic vocabulary with the earth and drawing attention to the body

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meltwater is a Poetry collection for those frozen between the astral and seeing a soul for what they are. The icy landscape of this poetry collection is well themed and curated so well. The personification of glaciers and melting water really draws the point of what it means to watch things change before your eyes and being unable to change the course of events. We are watching memories and not living to be focused on the present. The nucleus of the poetry here Is about finding ourselves amidst the turmoil and the hauntings of our memories. A hauntingly beautiful collection that freezes the human soul and places it unto print. Claire Wahmanholm experimental poetry and prose poetry flows so beautiful you can barely hear the melting water.
      Poetry collections like Wahmanholm are constructed to provoke soul-breaking thought from the audience. You will reflect on your own experiences and how you interact with the ever expanding and deteriorating environment. Even when you feel frozen - there is a way the sun reflects off the ice that reminds you to shine through. The ghosts of our memories are what melt our souls to be vulnerable to everyone - but to truly become a functional member of society. This was a great through that I had to read twice to full absorb the rhythm of the icy cold poetry.

For more reviews, recommendations, and tarot readings, please visit my blog, https://brujerialibrary.wordpress.com/

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since reading Redmouth I've been eagerly awaiting a new collection by Wahmanholm, and Meltwater is a stunning sequel. The experience reading these poems is like hearing Kassandra, the canary, the wolf, and a worried parent all rolled into one incredible, poetic voice. It takes a certain fearlessness to speak like that and faith, which maybe the same. It reminds me of Fanny Howe's statement (in The Wedding Dress) "I pretend that I can take a step, with D--th directing traffic and earthquake and heartbeat and hate, is all I know of faith." Though I may intuit where a poem or other is going, how it gets there is amazing without fail and full of surprising lines, images, and beautiful soundplay. I particularly loved the letter/prose poems and the erasure sequence strewn across the collection like read threads. The poems speak their unvarnished truths and clear as bells ringing with that faith that makes it possible to set one foot in front of another: "I cannot say 'no.' I allow myself to be yanked back up, exhausted. Seized by the topaz sky and the breeze through it. By 'yes,' by you."

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-constructed collection of poem sequences that explore the emotions and philosophies of living through climate change, extinctions, and the loss of a child. The most moving poems for me were the erasures, visually emphasizing the meditations on loss and absence and the difference between the two. There are clever alphabet-alliterative poems too, which sonically drive scientific lists and other poems that write to us from the imagined apocalyptic future where we need new words for the new world. This poet does strange well when it comes to language. There were only a few loose lines and threads I couldn’t make sense of or didn’t like what they said to me.

[Dorsey Craft · Rating 5 out of 5]

The speaker grieves for the climate as she rides the new dread of motherhood. Wahmanholm shows the reader how concerns for the planet can be interchangeable with worry and fear for one’s children. The title poem is a sectioned erasure that punctuates the collection, never using the same words twice. Form extends content as the pool of words becomes smaller with each new section. Other standouts include the apocalyptic imagery of “More Rabbits,” “Poem with No Children in It,” “The New Language,” and “The New Horticulture.” The trick of each of these is in its de familiarization of common moments in parenting. Also loved the music of the series of abecedarian-inspired prose poems.

[Michelle Hyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

No surprise this new collection of Claire’s is a fascinating thought-provoking deep dive into the end of the world or at least the end of life as we know it. I love how she puts her two daughters right in the middle of everything; as clearly they ARE everything-/“the grace we suffer everything for”. Some nice erasures as well. Good, reliably dark stuff here.

I highly recommend this and all her works ❤️

[Owlish]

"Half our genome is shared with fruit, more with fish, the most with ghosts." p. 8

"The melting point of ice is Empire formed by dust" p. 14

"P is for plastic, more permanent than permafrost." p. 77

"There is only so much life to go around. It isn't like a flame, whose belief in itself is enough to burn a forest down. Instead, we have been given one bolt of cloth to be shared. The choice is in how you shear it." p. 92

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Meltwater (2023) is liquid then Wilder (2018) is solid. Water and rock. River and rust. Two complimentary yet contrasting collections, where erasures and science are intertwined with alliteration and constraint, abecedarians and surrealism. I read both of these collections within 48 hours of each other so they feel like sequels, like two bleeding, breathing things. Mysterious and magical and haunting and real.

[Stella Carruthers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully rendered poetry that explores not only apocalypse and environmental break down but also suggests possibilities for transformation and new life from such spaces.
I started reading this book as part of a university course but kept reading because i was so captivated by the technical mastery and vivid imagery.
Would highly recommend!

[Jason Ly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully and intimately connected to nature and loss/decline of nature. Hard to pick a favorite poem, the glacier and meltwater series of poems along with the letter based poems give a wonderful through line that continues throughout the book. High reccomend

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was wowed by Claire Wahmanholm’s craft (her attention to musicality and white space especially!) and moved by the way these poems wrestle with the dread and wonder of motherhood in our melting world.

[Celinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection didn't strike me as much emotionally as her previous one, REDMOUTH, but I still thought it was well done!

[Laura Passin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning.

[Alyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I held on to this one for so long because of the shape poems. Are they rivers? Creeks? Evaporating water? Rain? Loved all the "Meltwater" poems.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Section 2 was peak

[Jen Lacroix · Rating 5 out of 5]

*brilliant*
**one of the greatest thinkers of our time**

[Amanda Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous collection. Easily one of my all time favorites.

[Myranda New · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not great at understanding poetry, but this was hauntingly beautiful with poignant details and chilling visions, 10/10

[Christina Borgoyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful work.

[Allyson Sheehan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might be too stupid for poetry :(

[Cubierocks · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I can't quire describe what each poem means or alludes to, the emotion is visceral and the technique, admirable.

Faves:

Glacier
The Future
The Empty Universe

[Lukas Sarnow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was an icy gut punch!

[Karen Ocana · Rating 4 out of 5]

gothic
is one word to describe its vibe

at times bewilderingly clever

at others sumptuously erudite and evocative

worth reading and rereading

not for
the faint of heart