simplyallytea's review against another edition
5.0
Brutal.
Drowning in the Floating world is a heart-wrenching book filled with a series of poems that followed the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 tsunami and Fukushima plant disaster. Each poem takes a new perspective of the individuals, buildings and animals who endured the aftermath.
Stories of mothers swallowed up by the sea; siblings wondering where their other half went; toys missing their owners; buildings confused on their emptiness; animals desperately wanting to be reunited; unforgiving waters that gave new meanings to thousands of people.
The 2011 tsunami was the aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake 130 km east from Japan’s shores. The northeastern coast towns of Kamaishi, Sendai, Miyako, Ishinomaki, Kesennuma, Shiogama, Kitaibaraki and Hitachinaka were underwater the due 10 meter waves that travelled more than 10km inland. The waves decimated towns and took away the bodies of thousands of victims when it retreated. The earthquake also affected the Fukushima nuclear power plant that forced the nearby residents to flee the radiation filled zone creating an eerie ghost town.
Meg Eden used her experience and her connection to Japan to tell the stories which those who have no voice. Just the like the debris-filled waters, Eden shows no mercy in displaying the agony through Western and Eastern poetic forms. She explores the complexity of grief of the dead and the survivors while illustrating how local and global responses to the tragedy when people were lost in their own suffering.
This book is not for the faint of heart, for its raw power will give you pain and tear stricken cheeks that will remind you how easily everything can be lost to the hand of Mother Earth. This is not an ode to disasters, but a memory of events that are can be forgotten by those who did not suffer through its moments. The poems in this book create a much-needed empathy for those who have never experience life-changing disasters in their lifetime.
Read if you have the heart.
Drowning in the Floating world is a heart-wrenching book filled with a series of poems that followed the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 tsunami and Fukushima plant disaster. Each poem takes a new perspective of the individuals, buildings and animals who endured the aftermath.
Stories of mothers swallowed up by the sea; siblings wondering where their other half went; toys missing their owners; buildings confused on their emptiness; animals desperately wanting to be reunited; unforgiving waters that gave new meanings to thousands of people.
The 2011 tsunami was the aftermath of a 9.0 earthquake 130 km east from Japan’s shores. The northeastern coast towns of Kamaishi, Sendai, Miyako, Ishinomaki, Kesennuma, Shiogama, Kitaibaraki and Hitachinaka were underwater the due 10 meter waves that travelled more than 10km inland. The waves decimated towns and took away the bodies of thousands of victims when it retreated. The earthquake also affected the Fukushima nuclear power plant that forced the nearby residents to flee the radiation filled zone creating an eerie ghost town.
Meg Eden used her experience and her connection to Japan to tell the stories which those who have no voice. Just the like the debris-filled waters, Eden shows no mercy in displaying the agony through Western and Eastern poetic forms. She explores the complexity of grief of the dead and the survivors while illustrating how local and global responses to the tragedy when people were lost in their own suffering.
This book is not for the faint of heart, for its raw power will give you pain and tear stricken cheeks that will remind you how easily everything can be lost to the hand of Mother Earth. This is not an ode to disasters, but a memory of events that are can be forgotten by those who did not suffer through its moments. The poems in this book create a much-needed empathy for those who have never experience life-changing disasters in their lifetime.
Read if you have the heart.
stephbookshine's review against another edition
4.0
*I received a free ARC of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
The poems in this collection are drenched with the bleak devastation that these terrifying natural disasters wrought on the lost and on the left behind.
It is clear that the author has personal experience of Japan, and her poetry paints a picture of affection, sympathetic grief and stark respect, as she weaves the lore of kitsune and kappa, ghosts and spirits, through the very real consequences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and resultant Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactor meltdown.
Imbued with raw emotion and a wealth of cultural knowledge about Japanese traditions and beliefs, Meg Eden brings the trauma of these events alive in a way that leaves the reader reeling at the destruction, haunted by the desolate aftermath, and awestruck at the mammoth task of rebuilding that falls to the grief-stricken.
Eden experiments with words, punctuation and form throughout her poems, creating very different effects as she moves from dead whales, to abandoned dolls, to ‘radium girls’. Most of the poems are fairly short, yet each one encapsulates a whole story of its own, carrying imagery that perfectly captures a mood, a setting, an intimacy of thought or feeling.
At the end of the collection, the author has included notes about the inspiration and factual basis for each poem, which led me inexorably down a path of further research – seeking out pictures, news reports and other accounts and educating myself a little more about an event that had only distantly touched on my consciousness before.
Anyone already interested in these disasters and the human costs will find these poems a valuable resource, and anyone coming to these tragedies without prior knowledge will find them am emotional, educational, introduction. And, of course, poetry lovers will appreciate the skilful writing.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
The poems in this collection are drenched with the bleak devastation that these terrifying natural disasters wrought on the lost and on the left behind.
It is clear that the author has personal experience of Japan, and her poetry paints a picture of affection, sympathetic grief and stark respect, as she weaves the lore of kitsune and kappa, ghosts and spirits, through the very real consequences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and resultant Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactor meltdown.
Imbued with raw emotion and a wealth of cultural knowledge about Japanese traditions and beliefs, Meg Eden brings the trauma of these events alive in a way that leaves the reader reeling at the destruction, haunted by the desolate aftermath, and awestruck at the mammoth task of rebuilding that falls to the grief-stricken.
Eden experiments with words, punctuation and form throughout her poems, creating very different effects as she moves from dead whales, to abandoned dolls, to ‘radium girls’. Most of the poems are fairly short, yet each one encapsulates a whole story of its own, carrying imagery that perfectly captures a mood, a setting, an intimacy of thought or feeling.
At the end of the collection, the author has included notes about the inspiration and factual basis for each poem, which led me inexorably down a path of further research – seeking out pictures, news reports and other accounts and educating myself a little more about an event that had only distantly touched on my consciousness before.
Anyone already interested in these disasters and the human costs will find these poems a valuable resource, and anyone coming to these tragedies without prior knowledge will find them am emotional, educational, introduction. And, of course, poetry lovers will appreciate the skilful writing.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
booksandprosecco's review against another edition
3.0
Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions below are my own.
Content warning: as this collection is about disasters where many people died, some of the quotes in this review may be triggering. Nearly all of the poems in the collection reference death/people dying and loss of people/possessions; there is also one poem that references “the burusera addiction” which is when adults find arousal in children’s clothing (I also discuss this below).
Drowning in the Floating World is a collection of poems about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The poems delve into what surviving these disasters was like and the trauma that people faced, both immediately after the disasters and over time.
“That First Night, the Hospital
was the only thing left standing.
…
Over the dark, people floated, crying
for help, crying as if there was any way
we could get them out of the water,
as if there was any room here.”
Eden’s poems were definitely evocative. As I was reading, I could see the story she was telling, and I felt intense emotion at what these people had lost. Nearly every page pulled some kind of emotion from me: sadness, anger, and even disgust.
I think what I struggled with was that these are three massive (and connected) disasters that had long-term effects on the people that lived there and around the world, but this collection is less than 60 pages long. It felt… odd? I’m not entirely sure if that’s the right word to explain my feelings, but I can’t come up with another right now…
“…she says They are burying us inside our own waste because no one wants to look at us and feel guilty no one wants to remember what went wrong or change anything everyone wants to go back to work back to their homes and return to what they’ve always done…”
To be fair, I wouldn’t say I know a lot about these disasters. I know they happened, and I remember the devastation on the news. The aftermath and long-term effects, however, I don’t know much about.
I do think with the vivid writing and harsh reality of the poems, this collection will become a great resource for those who are researching the disasters.
“Cleaning up the beach reminds me
of cleaning my room, only now
my room is the ocean
& everyday someone comes in
& pours trash in my bed
so that I’m sleeping on filth.”
I did find the one poem about the “burusera addiction” to be quite… random, among other things. The author explains the addiction as grown men finding hope and arousal in children’s clothing. Again, while it is a short poem, it is very detailed, and I do think it could be triggering for people.
This was not something I expected to read in a collection about an earthquake and tsunami, but I think it was meant to be tied to the aftermath and people needing to find hope in different things. That’s the only thing I can think of, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable that anyone would find arousal in children’s clothing. I can understand someone finding hope in a child’s shirt in the abstract “they are our future” type of way, but arousal from a child’s underwear is not okay.
The author includes a note at the end of the collection explaining that when she doesn’t understand something, she writes a poem about it to help her briefly inhabit that perspective. While she doesn’t condone the act, she understands “the humanness that invokes and abides in that experience.” I do not and don’t think that poem needed to be included, but that is my personal preference.
Poems are meant to evoke an emotion from us, and Meg Eden’s Drowning in the Floating World collection definitely does that. It is short, but delivers a punch. Anyone who is interested in learning more about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster should definitely read this collection.
Thanks again to Meg Eden for sending me a copy of this book to read and review!
Drowning in the Floating World releases in March 2020.
Note: All quotes above were taken from an advance reader’s edition of the book, and are subject to change in the final release.
stephbookshine's review
4.0
*I received a free ARC of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
The poems in this collection are drenched with the bleak devastation that these terrifying natural disasters wrought on the lost and on the left behind.
It is clear that the author has personal experience of Japan, and her poetry paints a picture of affection, sympathetic grief and stark respect, as she weaves the lore of kitsune and kappa, ghosts and spirits, through the very real consequences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and resultant Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactor meltdown.
Imbued with raw emotion and a wealth of cultural knowledge about Japanese traditions and beliefs, Meg Eden brings the trauma of these events alive in a way that leaves the reader reeling at the destruction, haunted by the desolate aftermath, and awestruck at the mammoth task of rebuilding that falls to the grief-stricken.
Eden experiments with words, punctuation and form throughout her poems, creating very different effects as she moves from dead whales, to abandoned dolls, to ‘radium girls’. Most of the poems are fairly short, yet each one encapsulates a whole story of its own, carrying imagery that perfectly captures a mood, a setting, an intimacy of thought or feeling.
At the end of the collection, the author has included notes about the inspiration and factual basis for each poem, which led me inexorably down a path of further research – seeking out pictures, news reports and other accounts and educating myself a little more about an event that had only distantly touched on my consciousness before.
Anyone already interested in these disasters and the human costs will find these poems a valuable resource, and anyone coming to these tragedies without prior knowledge will find them am emotional, educational, introduction. And, of course, poetry lovers will appreciate the skilful writing.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
The poems in this collection are drenched with the bleak devastation that these terrifying natural disasters wrought on the lost and on the left behind.
It is clear that the author has personal experience of Japan, and her poetry paints a picture of affection, sympathetic grief and stark respect, as she weaves the lore of kitsune and kappa, ghosts and spirits, through the very real consequences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami and resultant Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reactor meltdown.
Imbued with raw emotion and a wealth of cultural knowledge about Japanese traditions and beliefs, Meg Eden brings the trauma of these events alive in a way that leaves the reader reeling at the destruction, haunted by the desolate aftermath, and awestruck at the mammoth task of rebuilding that falls to the grief-stricken.
Eden experiments with words, punctuation and form throughout her poems, creating very different effects as she moves from dead whales, to abandoned dolls, to ‘radium girls’. Most of the poems are fairly short, yet each one encapsulates a whole story of its own, carrying imagery that perfectly captures a mood, a setting, an intimacy of thought or feeling.
At the end of the collection, the author has included notes about the inspiration and factual basis for each poem, which led me inexorably down a path of further research – seeking out pictures, news reports and other accounts and educating myself a little more about an event that had only distantly touched on my consciousness before.
Anyone already interested in these disasters and the human costs will find these poems a valuable resource, and anyone coming to these tragedies without prior knowledge will find them am emotional, educational, introduction. And, of course, poetry lovers will appreciate the skilful writing.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
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