A review by booksandprosecco
Drowning in the Floating World by Meg Eden

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.