Reviews

The Oceanography of Her by Sarah Herrin

lovecommamelis's review

5.0

Love captures you like a rip current: it pulls you in unexpectedly, sometimes even drowning you until you make your way back to the shore. Sarah Herrin's "Oceanography of Her" takes a deep dive in love through the ocean and its elements. Initally, the poems gently pull you in—verses embellished with different versions of water and kissed with locational botany—personifying Mother nature’s elements to portray love. Her writing is intimate, for each stanza tenderly whispers into the reader’s ears. But this was only the calm before the storm. Behind the personifications, metaphors, and imagery reveals Her; Her becomes the object of the narrator's feeling of loss while being trapped in a tide of nostalgia. During the storm of what they could've been, the continuous theme of music, whether it be from the piano or the Sirens, only becomes more demanding and has a louder voice in the narrator's time of yearning. This interlude becomes a direct conversation between the narrator and Her, but as the narrator recovers, she returns to the ocean to mend her heart to only feel love but just without Her. Concluding the journey, Sarah Herrin’s “Oceanography of Her” invites the readers to ride the waves of emotions through metaphors of nature, mythology, and music—I hope you’ll enjoy the journey.