Editors Selection/Frost Place Competitio

Both a reckoning and a reclamation, How the Water Holds Me surveys movements through diaspora, dissecting displacement, mortality, responsibility, and masculinity. With deft narrative and rich imagery, Tariq Luthun' s collection of poems makes space for everyone, from Gaza to Detroit, asking us to reassess the notion of belonging, and to do something meaningful with these revelations. How the Water Holds Me invites each of us to explore what it means to seek- and share- refuge.

This collection vividly traces the speaker' s journey in a psychiatric treatment facility. With precision and honesty, Honum cuts through the climate of silence surrounding mental illness and treatment. These fiercely intimate poems draw the reader into the boundaried world of a psychiatric ward, where moments of darkness exist alongside moments of humor and deep connection, and renders the natural world beyond the facility' s windows with piercing mystery and beauty.