What color is a heartache from a love lost at sea?

In the wake of World Oceans Day, it seemed as appropriate a time as any to announce my forthcoming chapbook from Nekyia Press, As the Tide Came Flowing In.



It is my first collection in four years: a cycle of poems and the previously unpublished title story. There is ocean in them and exile and history and weddings and shape-change and more than one alphabet. The haunting sea-heart which graces its cover is the photography of Anna Tambour, the gorgeous cover design itself by Matthew Revert. As soon as it may be pre/ordered, believe me, I will let everyone know. In the meantime, it has taken a great deal of salt to get to this stage; at least there is sea-drift to show for it.

Through a double handful of poems and one novelette, As the Tide Came Flowing In combs for love, persistence, what wrecks and what remains, what the sea keeps, and what it gives back. There are kelp-ribboned caverns here and the line of bright sky that meets the offing, black weddings and a scattering of pearls. Stark, intricate, deft and queer, Taaffe's is an invitation to the deep.