The Sharp Edges of Water

By Angélique Jamail

This is a book of stories as much as a collection of poems. In it, the characters swerve between the rain-drenched, tree-lined, concrete plains of Houston and the voluptuous, dynamic terrain of Los Angeles. They face multiple realities, and though they’re earnestly grounded, they sometimes swim in the waters of magic realism. Their story is both relatable and a little bit surreal.

“For Jamail, loss is the fecund territory complicated by the travails of geographic movement, emotional upheaval, and cultural dissonance and where the poetry sings its best.”
-- Sarah Cortez, VANISHING POINTS: POEMS AND PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXAS ROADSIDE MEMORIALS (editor and contributor)

“THE SHARP EDGES OF WATER is a collection of superbly crafted poems...poems of faith and freeways, of lies and longing. Angélique sees the details of Los Angeles and love, with a necessity of details we locals have forgotten. As the title implies, you might get wet reading them. Wear appropriate clothing.”
-- Rick Lupert, author of BEAUTIFUL MISTAKES and GOD WRESTLER, creator of www.PoetrySuperHighway.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angélique Jamail
• Release date: Dec 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732862937

Angélique Jamail

Angélique Jamail’s poetry and essays have appeared in over two dozen anthologies and journals, including New Reader Magazine, Waxwing, Time-Slice, Improbable Worlds, Pluck Magazine, The Milk of Female Kindness––An Anthology of Honest Motherhood, Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston, Femmeliterate, Bayou City Magazine, and The Enchantment of the Ordinary. Her work was selected as a Finalist for the New Letters Prize in Poetry in 2011. Her magic realism novelette Finis. (Odeon Press) has been praised by fiction writer Ari Marmell as having “some of the most real people I’ve encountered via text in a long time,” and by poet Marie Marshall as “a witty tale of conformity, prejudice, and transformation, in a world that is disturbing as much for its familiarity as for its strangeness.” She teaches Creative Writing and English in Houston. Find her online at her blog Sappho’s Torque (www.SapphosTorque.com).

Book preview

About The Sharp Edges of Water

This is a book of stories as much as a collection of poems. In it, the characters swerve between the rain-drenched, tree-lined, concrete plains of Houston and the voluptuous, dynamic terrain of Los Angeles. They face multiple realities, and though they’re earnestly grounded, they sometimes swim in the waters of magic realism. Their story is both relatable and a little bit surreal.

ADVANCE PRAISE for The Sharp Edges of Water

For Jamail, loss is the fecund territory complicated by the travails of geographic movement, emotional upheaval, and cultural dissonance and where the poetry sings its best.

-- Sarah Cortez, Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials (editor and contributor)

"The Sharp Edges of Water is a collection of superbly crafted poems…poems of faith and freeways, of lies and longing. Angélique sees the details of Los Angeles and love, with a necessity of details we locals have forgotten. As the title implies, you might get wet reading them. Wear appropriate clothing."

-- Rick Lupert, author of Beautiful Mistakes and God Wrestler, creator of www.PoetrySuperHighway.com

"Come to me now once again and release me

from grueling anxiety.

All that my heart longs for,

fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love’s battle."

Sappho, translated by Julia Dubnoff

also by Angélique Jamail

Finis.

The

Sharp Edges

of Water

Angélique Jamail

This collection contains poems that contain elements of fiction, drawn from the author’s imagination and not necessarily to be construed as real.

The Sharp Edges of Water. Copyright 2018 by Angélique Jamail. All rights reserved. Produced in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in fair use cases of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or essays and reviews. For more information about Angélique Jamail and her work, or to contact the author, please visit www.SapphosTorque.com and www.AngeliqueJamail.com.

Published by Odeon Press.

www.OdeonPress.com

ISBN 978-1-7328629-3-7

Edited by Sarah Cortez.

Cover design by Lucianna Chixaro Ramos.

Book formatting by Jesse Gordon.

dedicated to

Alex, Allison, Amanda, Emily, and Katherine

making their ways

Contents

About The Sharp Edges of Water

ADVANCE PRAISE for The Sharp Edges of Water

also by Angélique Jamail

Foreword by Sarah Cortez

Part 1: Joyride

Moving Out

Two Cities

Los Angeles

Joyride

Book with Forgotten Title

Listening for Atlantis

A Brief and Envious History of Particle Physics

His Ballad at Breakfast

The Usual

Manifest Destiny

After

The Awakening of Jack Brown

Inamorata

Joan and the City

Part 2: Dancing on the Sharpest Floors

Long-Distance

The Hummingbirds Warned

Half-Truths Inside Villanelle

Bleeding the Sky

Good-Night

New Love in Dead Cornfields

Cleaning House

Reflection

Barefoot on Marble Fragments

Ruby / Renew / Redux

Part 3: Those Who Hold Each Other

Plan B

Upon Taking My Kids to the Last Roller Rink Left in Houston

Summer Night Rite

Lullaby for a Crying Child

The Wilderness of Waters

Moving to Your Home

Journey

Commonly Occurring in Villages, in