We Step into the Sea: New and Selected Poems

Author: Claudia Keelan

Publisher: Barrow Street Press (2018)

"We Step Into The Sea collects over three decades of work by one of the most singular voices in contemporary American poetry. It tells the story of a lyric poet who both probes and sheds the self in search of a 'we,' not to belong to, but rather, to care for, to serve: 'I will hold us safely together, / we will consider the falling whole.' In these poems of passive resistance and active celebration, we are given a panoramic view of a poet who insists that experimentation is an ethical imperative, one that will help us forge a kingdom of compassion that runs counter to empire. From her home in the desert, Keelan sees an alternative beauty that resists 'the beauty of human enterprise, its folly, from above / Greening a desert.' She sees instead 'the glory of the red rocks,' and in this gift of a book, she shows us this glory at the very moment when we most need to see it for ourselves."

–Sasha Steensen