$14.99
“By turns lyrical and candid, alert to the familial and to the political, the poems in Hearing the Underwater reveal how the self is hammered into existence. The harrowing braiding of misogyny and poverty, the confusion of adolescence, and nerve-racking mothering fashion and configure the speaker, who is often ensnared between ‘two realms: unfounded fear / and awestruck observation.’ Rich with memorable phrasing and unexpected imagery, the poems also reveal a self that has survived. Savannah Slone’s work is urgent, sobering, and beautiful.”
–Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning
“Savannah Slone’s Hearing the Underwater does just what its title promises—offers us the world in slow-honest-motion, the way we might experience it if we were, indeed, submerged but also able to breathe, to survive. Ultimately, these poems are about survival; their bold, unflinching directness will not let us turn away from ourselves.”
–Stacey Waite, author of the lake has no saint
“‘I’m going to tell you a truth and a lie: I love myself.’ Now that is an opening to a poem. With language that pierces and lineation that perforates, Savannah Slone’s collection excavates from beneath white picket fences, a wallpaper’s yellow rosebuds, and ‘Towers that gleam / and scheme / the American dream.’ Humor, erasure, and emphasis complicate these accomplished pages. Hearing the Underwater is both mediation and agitation; a resolve to survey the damage but to keep going, to ignite and ascend.”
–Sandra Beasley, author of Count the Waves
“This collection is an honest mosaic of the journey to self-love, brimming with poems that effortlessly capture moments like still-life paintings.”
–Blythe Baird, author of Give Me A God I Can Relate To
Hearing the Underwater
by Savannah Slone
$14.99
978-1-63534-821-7
2019
Savannah Slone is a queer writer who is completing her M.F.A. in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry and short fiction pieces have appeared in various literary magazines. When she’s not writing, Savannah enjoys reading, knitting, hiking, and discussing intersectional feminism.
Brittany –
A beautiful debut from Savannah Slone. Strong and impactful opinions full of passion which I admire. I love the honesty to her writing and am looking forward to more in the future.
Jeremy Mifsud –
Hearing the Underwater is a chapbook you want to have on your shelf—you’ll be reading the poems over and over. Several themes are approached within this collection, including motherhood, mental health and social issues such as poverty. Slone does not shy away from any thought that consume her mind.
In the poem “Cynicism and Other Synonyms”, she starts with the following stanza:
“When I have greasy hair,
I am incapable of being happy,
yet I put it off just long enough
because feeling agitated feels good
sometimes.”
Cynicism and Other Synonyms (p. 3)
And that’s only the beginning (it ends even better, trust me). In a simple way, she shows us how ‘illogical’ mental illness can be, and I could strongly relate right off the bat. Slone bares herself with the rawness of language, without hiding, and that’s why as a reader I found it so easy to connect with her poetry. And if anyone knows me well enough, they’d know how difficult it is for me to channel myself into another person’s world—Slone’s feat is by no means easy.
Her words transferred her anger and passion to me. I couldn’t stop nodding in agreement (with pouty lips and furrowed eyebrows) to some of her poems. Take a look at these lines:
“we pray on as the mounds of orphaned
pleas and rising statistics
pause it has happened
again”
Within Your White Picket Fence (p. 12)
What makes Slone’s work exceptional is that she has something to say, in a way that compels you to not miss a word. Her voice is one that we need more of, so I strongly recommend you to buy this chapbook.
Notes:
I was provided with a free eBook copy in exchange for an honest review.
Quotes may differ slightly from original due to formatting difficulties on blog posts.
TSS (verified owner) –
I once described Savannah Slone’s poetry as giving me a feeling similar to that of romping around in the woods and standing on the dilapidated old mattress that covered a well. It’s anticipation, imagination, a gut punch. It’s also resilient and a clear reflection of her soul. I can’t wait to hear what Savannah has to say in the future.
Hayley –
Savannah Slone’s collection of poetry ‘Hearing The Underwater’ is both provocative and raw. Her poetry touches on subjects of sex, reproduction, motherhood and living in modern day America. There is so much honesty in her writing you really get a sense of Slone’s voice throughout the collection. At times she is screaming at the reader to see the importance of recognising ones self, owning your own body and standing up against Trump’s America. But it’s the quiet moments in between that really resonated with me. The subtle ways that Slone talks about mental health is inspiring. It’s so easy to connect with her writing because of her raw honesty, she doesn’t hide behind overly complicated metaphors and that’s what I love about her. The imagery is so creative and vivid, I highly recommend that you read ‘Hearing The Underwater’.
DeLana Slone –
Great read! I highly recommend this book. Loved it.
Noelle –
Peer. Friend. Role Model. Savannah Slone does it again. I have been reading her writing for several years in both a professional and personal environment and she never fails to blow me away. I am unsure how talent was bred so easily within her mind but she makes better use of it than anyone else I know. Five stars isn’t enough to fully portray how I feel about this chapbook.
Hearing the Underwater is a powerful, enchanting, consuming collection of poems that encompass multiple different hard-to-talk-about topics. “…and I’ll be stuck in two realms: unfounded fear and awestruck observation. That’s how I feel most of the time, really”. Savannah encapsulated the inner workings of her mind and put it on paper. She took the most difficult emotions and actually formed sentences to explain them. That is not something easily done and something we should all aspire to attempt in our own writing.
Cynicism and Other Synonyms is one of my two favorite poems within this collection because of its raw energy. I have never read something so mind-numbingly beautiful and understated all at once. It’s the simplest concept transformed into an eye-opening poem that digs deep into both her personality and your own.
Self Care and Other Unattainables is my second favorite poem within this collection, though it was difficult to narrow it down. “You want to take better care of yourself, but you’re not in the mood and neither am I”. A simple striking sentence about the dangers of lack of self care. It can lead to depression, anxiety, and worse, but it’s a difficult habit to get into. Loving oneself is not an easy feat and this poem demonstrates that seamlessly.
The rest of the poems in this collection discuss important topics such as abortion, racism, gun control, mental health, and others. It is an important look into our current society and how bad things can go when the wrong people are in control of our country. “…or you could always revolt against the United States of Hate and Privilege”. Savannah uses her platform to educate and inspire people of all races, genders, and classes to look inside themselves and see what’s really there. Her writing is an intense view of our world from a single perspective.
Savannah Slone should be seen as an inspiration to the poetry community because of her dedication, passion, and raw creativity. This collection of poems is unlike any I have ever seen because of her specific writing style and how she views the world through glasses that are anything but rose-colored.
Nabil Blaeser –
I just finished reading this new collection by Savannah Slone after having been sent the ebook in exchange for a review.
Here is a voice building itself through poetry, often painfully and evincing a weariness that comes from experience and from an identity hard-earned.
There are moments when I am right with her. In “Cynicism and Other Symptoms”: “When I have greasy hair, / I am incapable of being happy / yet I put it off just long enough / because feeling agitated feels good sometimes.” I hear ya girl.
My only complaint is that her verse occasionally leans toward journal poetry. The phrasing becomes slightly predictable, where I would like to read the unexpected, and I feel like I’m being lectured rather than invited to feel what she wants me to feel. Yet often, just as I am feeling this way, she gives me the unexpected line that I want. Little moments of play or darkness.
One of my favourite poems was her last, “Muzzled Magic”. I like Slone best at her most abstract—her talent with imagery and unique specificity allows me to lose myself for a moment in her stream and feel my way through.
Liam Xavier –
Slone is trying to make her point, to plant a flag on the world and write her name across it. There is an essence of her own identity coursing through the veins of each page, and although I did not know her previous to this book, I feel confident I could identify a Savannah Slone poem just from its tone. That’s not an easy feat.
[…] Savannah Slone is a bold writer with no problem baring all in the interest of social and political upheaval/change. She is writing her own story to share with others, as much as she is listing a manifesto which she continues to implement. It is like ‘Hearing The Underwater’ is a taster of a young writer’s promises and demands, and her future is the journey of a leader.
TheSunshineHypothesis –
… The watercolor
humming of the bees
and their kazoos make us swallow
the florescent Morse code rot
of our minds’ inner workings.
Inky cigarette
ashes shiver
beneath the graffiti
rot while conceptualized univserses
dance in the machine shadows.
You discard empty
prayers of empty generosity.
They shimmer from your gold,
hollow lungs.
— an excerpt from the poem “hollow lungs, eyes, kazoos and fingernails”
Hearing The Underwater; a short poetry collection by Savannah Slone is composed of poems containing raw and vivid imagery. The poems indicate the author’s transition from womanhood to motherhood and her growth in both aspects. The poetry touches on many heavy and important subjects like motherhood, self recognition, body positivity and the modern day America with such intensity and honesty that the metaphor filled poetry, at some places, give the impression of the author shouting out aloud the insufferable injustices that need to be recognized and put a stop to. Issues regarding mental health are also talked about in subtle hints.
Tough I was unable to grasp the concept of some of the poems, I throughly enjoyed the pieces; containing elaborate descriptions, eloquent word choices and brutal, raw honesty.
The author provided me an eCopy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Melissa Wagner –
“Moths try
to enter through a dark
window. They see my light
and they want in, but I don’t
want anymore holes
in my clothes
or my life.”
Hearing the Underwater by Savannah Sloan is filled with intense moments of a woman’s life. You clearly feel her hurt and pain in the writing and there are moments of her longing for connection that she does reach through the words and make the reader feel connected to problems and issues that may not relate to you personally. That kind of writing is rare and magical. I will say that I didn’t feel connected to each poem. A few of them fell flat to me or seemed forced somehow. But the ones that did connect were beautiful. Overall I would say she is definitely an author I will be watching and I give this collection 4 stars.