The Wine-Dark Sea

Author: Mathias Svalina

Publisher: Sidebrow Books (2016)

In a clear-cut voice "as simple as ink," Mathias Svalina's The Wine-Dark Sea vocalizes the urge to write oneself alive. Through this lyric journal of taut poems, each titled "The Wine-Dark Sea," Svalina breathes life into overlooked places: the driveway a car turns into at the end of a workday, how a tree holds the dirt, the edge of a page on which "I'd always assumed / I'd die alone." Every poem is a baffled drop, a pulse trying not to be dead, and beneath the spine of each sentence, Svalina hides, carrying us, seeking an exit. It is impossible not to be stained by The Wine-Dark Sea.