Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water - by E Hughes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A debut collection of lyric poems interrogating the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California.
Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a debut collection by E. Hughes, marries personal narrative with historical excavation to articulate the intricacies of Black familial love, life, and pain. Tracing the experiences of a southern Black family, their migration to the San Francisco Bay area, and the persistent anti-Blackness there (despite the state's insistence that it is/was not involved in the US' projects of imperialism or chattel slavery), Hughes illuminates the intersections of history, grief, and violence.
At the book's heart is "The Accounts of Mammy Pleasant," a persona poem written from the perspective of the formerly enslaved abolitionist and financier Mary Ellen Pleasant who is thought to have helped fund John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Alongside this historical account, Hughes deftly weaves in the story of a contemporary Black family navigating the generational trauma resulting from the Great Migration: domestic violence and racialized violence, familial love and loyalty, the work of parenting, and the work of being a child. Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water reveals in its pages that, while many things have changed over time, ultimately the question of what "freedom" meant and looked like for Black people in the early 20th century retains the same murkiness and contradictions for Black people today.

Review Quotes

"Sorting through the wreckage of personal and collective history, Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water neutralizes what might otherwise haunt and destroy. Hughes does the work of all great poets: holds the truths of love and pain, letting both live in the light."
--Kemi Alabi, author of Against Heaven

"Hughes looks with clear-eyes at human frailty and failure, asks questions that lead readers to ponder their own archives of memory. Poignant, vividly imagined, and wise, Hughes' Ankle-Deep In Pacific Water reminds us that "we can't dwell on the past. . .God will turn us to salt if we look back at everything we've lost or never had."
--Janice N. Harrington, author of Yard Show

"This is family shoved into the glaring light of memory, where a troubled lineage is laid bare in tender, audacious lyric. So many writers are terrified to trouble the past and risk unearthing themselves. That's a terror Hughes has conquered in this pained and imperative work."
--Patricia Smith, author of Unshuttered: Poems

About the Author

E. Hughes' poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Poet Lore, Indiana Review, and Gulf Coast Magazine--among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. In 2021, they received their MFA+MA from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Currently, Hughes is a PhD student in Philosophy at Emory University studying black aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism.