Synchronized Swimmers: Poems and Stories

is a wistful marvel of a collection of the latest poems and stories by Tim Hawkins. “Whatever I propose…will never do it justice,” one poem’s speaker laments, and indeed the world’s mysteries and heartbreaks are too vast and complex for language. Yet the poems and stories in this book reach achingly into that abyss and fill a reader with hope. These are explorations of grief and loneliness, tender and searching, urging us to value our connections to each other and to the planet we inhabit: “Whisper some small true words/ bearing the scars of your teeth/ and we shall savor the harvest with our tongues.” It’s not enough; it’s what we can do. (Amorak Huey, author of and ).