A review by saguaros
Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles

4.0

Nina Mingya Powles is probably one of my favourite current writers. There is something about her words that I just love to wrap myself into. This collection is no different. She is a poet after all. Each chapter/essay is rich and, in its way, soothing, weaving autobiographical details with observations of nature, swimming, language, belonging, memory, family, race, and more. Each one, in turn, often told in vignettes, little windows that build to a whole that never feels quite complete but more like it’s ongoing still. I don’t think it can be read like you’d read a memoir or a novel, but rather it should be read slowly, a chapter here and there. I think it could feel TOO slow and poetic and meandering (and dare I say, boring) otherwise. At least this is what I did, and it worked for me.