This week, as part of our Poetry Beach Reads series, we welcome Sarah Brockhaus. Sarah is a poet from Nebraska, co-editor of The Shore Poetry, and a PhD student at the University of North Texas.
Welcome to Poetry Beach Reads, Sarah! Tell us... what makes a good beach read?
A good beach read is one where every page is engaging and vibrant, one that keeps drawing you back in and giving you something new each time you pick it up again. A good beach read also thrives in lively community. The sounds of the ocean, of laughter and chatter, become background music to the soundscape of the poems, which benefit from this bright punctuation and from the rereading of lines it sometimes makes necessary. A beach read is not a book read in isolation, but one you dip in and out of in comfortable companionship, one where you can nudge the person next to you and say, you have to listen to this line!
Here are three books Sarah suggests.
Space Struck (Sarabande Books) by Paige Lewis is a perfect poetry beach read because of the vividity of each poem. You can open the book to any page and be met with bright, precise imagery and moments of absurdity that will have you laughing and crying in the same line, but the collection also benefits from reading it straight through and noting the interactions between poems. There are so many poems in this collection that beg to be read aloud and shared and returned to.
Hard Child (Copper Canyon Press) by Natalie Shapero manages to take on intense fears and often dark subject matter with specificity and a sense of comedic timing that gives this collection a sense of wry playfulness. There are many short poems throughout that make it easy to read aloud to others and to pick up for a few moments at a time. It is a fitting read for somewhere lively, full of family and friends, because of how grounded in everyday realities these poems are.
The Tornado Is the World (Saturnalia Books) by Catherine Pierce has an abundance of beach landscapes: from sand and water to boardwalk ice cream and Ferris wheels. As the title suggests, this collection is filled with personified tornados, perhaps best read about while enjoying the safety and sunshine of a beach day. This stark contrast of imagery across the collection makes each poem feel new and urgent each time you turn the page or pick the book back up.
About Sarah Brockhaus
Sarah Brockhaus is a poet from Nebraska and a co-editor of The Shore Poetry. She earned her MFA in poetry from Louisiana State University and is a PhD student at the University of North Texas. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and her poems are published or forthcoming in Guernica, The National Poetry Review, The Greensboro Review, The Laurel Review and elsewhere. To learn more, visit sarahbrockhaus.com and Substack @sarahbrockhaus
Your Turn! Tell us... what makes a good beach read?
Are you a poet, editor, or reader burning with a few good recommendations? Please write to katie@thepoetryshop.com with subject header: "Poetry Beach Reads". Submit a paragraph describing your ideal beach read. Then recommend 3-5 poetry books (a paragraph for each) telling us why we should bring them to the beach. We will try our best to feature as many of these as we can through August.