WINTER AT A SUMMER HOUSE

A poet’s debut collection swims through the cycles of life.

Hines grew up in Massachusetts, adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, and the poems in this debut collection are filled with richly detailed imagery evoking the sea—of characters swimming, bathing, diving, as if time were an unpredictable element and living, a process of navigating unexpected currents. Each of the volume’s six sections is associated with a different phase of life; one poem features an infant taking a bath (“As water rushes from the tap, rainbow bubbles / build then snap. Waves ripple her legs and chest”), while a later work featuring a more independent and stronger protagonist, going to the water to “dive / the way he taught me, / beeline into surf swell, / under mayhem, into sparkle.” The richness of Hines’ poetic structure is powerfully auditory, often reminiscent of the works of Gerard Manley Hopkins. The sounds and syncopated rhythms of her language are just as vital as the subjects she describes, as when “the baby cried / his distress disguised / as hunger for the tender / tongue of touch” or when adults yearn to remain in “a place where the taste of salt might linger / on remembered skin.” Personal experiences intertwine with vivid imagery in Hines’ poems, offering a tactile description of living that’s often baffling but always meaningful; it’s a world where “Sometimes grownups kiss. Sometimes they cut. / It’s hard to explain but some like to draw blood.” The voices within this collection savor each moment of play, each sensation, and each moment before the sun descends.

A dynamic and colorful set of poems inspired by water and ocean imagery.