Poet Marjorie Saiser continues “…and since then I’ve been bobbing in the deep, splashing, coughing, water in my throat at times, learning to swim.” What would you pick for a title of a poem about that describes a wedding day and then the fact that everything changed when the “boat capsized”? Does “Happy” come to mind? No? This collection of poetry describes many moments where everything changes, and old assumptions prove to be false. Saiser says that she writes “to stay green, to keep learning.” Her reappraisals are interesting, surprising, and focused on small, explosive flashes.
Saiser, Marjorie. “Happy.” Learning to Swim, Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2019, p. 9.