Trouble the Water, Paperback/Derrick Austin

"'Expect poison of the standing water, ' Blake warned, highlighting the dangers of imaginative stagnation. I'm now tempted to believe that Blake himself has sent us Derrick Austin and his remarkable collection, Trouble the Water . At once gospel and troubadour song, these deeply spiritual and expansively erotic poems are lucid, unflinching, urgent. This is an extraordinary debut." -- Mary Szybist, winner of the National Book Award Rich in religious and artistic imagery, Trouble the Water is an intriguing exploration of race, sexuality, and identity, particularly where self-hood is in constant flux. These intimate, sensual poems interweave pop culture and history--moving from the Bible through several artistic eras--to interrogate what it means to be, as Austin says, fully human as a "queer, black body" in 21st century America.