All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned

Poems in Erica Wright’s virtuosic new collection, All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned, have an almost subliminal force. We read them with feline attention, hungering after each line’s fugitive beauty. These poems capture the quicksilver of inspiration, and hold it steady, the way a hummingbird seems motionless sipping from the bud.

–Gregory Pardlo

You don’t need psychedelics or hypnosis. You don’t need a shaman or any divine intervention. If it’s a trip you’re looking for, try Erica Wright’s All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned. This is a book that warps the America we know into a mesmerizing weirdness. It scintillates the ordinary. Wright’s lyricism, the fantastic juxtapositions in her diction and imagery all give us an alternate vision of our national moment. Equal parts surreal, sinister, and sincere, this is a place you definitely want to visit. It might just be the kind of place you need to live in.

–Jaswinder Bolina