My Weight in Water - by Michael Kleber-Diggs (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A powerful exploration of race and swimming by a writer who "see[s] the world whole, allowing daily intimacies against a backdrop of social injustice" (New York Times).

Michael Kleber-Diggs and his twin brother, Martin, grew up in Kansas City, their family part of a prosperous community of Black medical professionals. Their father had never learned to swim, so when he wanted to buy a boat, their mother, a former lifeguard, agreed on the condition that her sons take swimming lessons. Then their father was murdered in an act of random violence, and everyone's lives changed--but for Michael, in the years and moves that followed, swimming remained a constant.

My Weight in Water is the intimate memoir of a swimmer. It is a story of race and recreation in America--of segregation, desegregation, and justice--told through one family and their lives in the Midwest. It is a reckoning with the concept of self-care and a plea for joy. Most of all, it is a book about what it means to love an activity that leaves you vulnerable--your mostly unclothed body in close proximity to other mostly unclothed bodies, moving through the same water--when you are marked as an outsider by both your race and your size.

Transparently and gloriously written, My Weight in Water is a definitively American work about what it costs one swimmer to enter the pool and why he does it anyway--imagining a future where all people have access to an activity that renders us weightless.

Review Quotes

Praise for Worldly Things

"The full-throated poems in this debut collection see the world whole, allowing daily intimacies against a backdrop of social injustice."--New York Times Book Review

"I am captivated, consoled, and bowled over by these poems, which are knifelike in their concision and oracular at their core. Worldly Things is so full of an age-old knowing I'm shocked it is Kleber-Diggs's debut. It is like the conundrum of the human soul: new and eternal at once."--Tracy K. Smith, former poet laureate of the United States

"Extraordinary . . . Plain spoken and insisting on the direct gaze, Worldly Things unveils the world that's right in front of us. The world that has been waiting, all this time, for someone to really see what is actually happening."--Camille T. Dungy, author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden

"Kleber-Diggs takes his lived experience as a Black man in America, and with his pen, unpacks it . . . in ways that are candid, open-minded and openhearted. Through these hard conversations, he feels our most profound connections are made."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"You should read [Worldly Things]. Because the work is so good and original, modest and quiet and piercing. . . . More than anything, you should read this book because if a neighbor spends decades trying to find the right thing to say to you, you should listen."--Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

"A stunning, expertly crafted work exploring themes such as grief, trauma, and fatherhood . . . This work is highly recommended for all collections."--Library Journal (starred review)

About the Author

Michael Kleber-Diggs is the author of the poetry collection Worldly Things, which was awarded the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. His work has been anthologized in You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón; There's a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis, edited by John Freeman and Tracy K. Smith; and A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars. Kleber-Diggs teaches poetry and creative nonfiction through the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop. He was born and raised in Kansas and now lives in St. Paul.