In Ishmael’s Violets, Vivian Eyre is a sea scholar. She has experienced the sea in every direction, and all its accessories as well. I know I sound corny, but this book is the most authentic non- “beach read” beach read! She examines what the sea feeds on and how the sea feeds us. She begins with myth, and myth comes with the tone of knowledge: “The answer to why whales entered the sea’s doorway / is silence…” This wisdom is one way Eyre approaches the ocean. What I admire about this collection is that she has many different ways of entering this landscape.

Landscape is always ocean, but not simply. The landscape of sea life Eyre brings to us is shipwreck, museum, aquarium, eBay, lobster shack, the Jimmy Kimmel show! Eyre shakes it up. Readers are taken on "voyages" with creativity and wit. Her banter with the beach is uniquely entertaining and yet undeniably poetic.

Eyre speaks of the environmental crisis with ease and doesn’t stray away from poetry. She shows how we degrade and damage the sea and how the sea can damage us. A great example of this is in “Broken Free from Moorings” when the beach patrol comes for a dead turtle. “neck slit open, book necklace, / like a jeweled choked. I was thinking— / This is the one with skin.”

The ocean makes up most of our planet and therefore stands for many things we seek, grieve, and fear. This book evokes the language of the sea. Each voice is another voice we can turn to.