Waterlines

In Waterlines, Louisiana native Alison Pelegrin gives us poems that describe the terrible power of nature even as they underscore the state's beauty. The poet moves from the familiar gaudy delights of life in New Orleans to immerse the reader in the vastly different experience of living north of Lake Pontchartrain. In this fractured world, the Bogue Falaya River becomes a highway paved with benedictions, psalms, and praise for ordinary things, as Pelegrin searches the unfamiliar for an incarnation of home. Water-the threat of hurricanes and floods, as well as the tangled geographies and histories of the rivers and lakes themselves-sustains the poet as she settles into the casual beauty of "the daily route," finding spiritual depth and delight in both human and natural wonders.