Machine generated contents note: The Gate To The Water -- Sound---Part 1 Girl with Red Scarf -- Blessing Blue Crabs -- To Describe My Body Walking -- Discovering Girdles -- Rose Lassi -- All Merchandise Sold As Is: No Refunds, Returns, Exchanges, Guarantees -- Sound -- Chatterblue -- Turquoise -- Mother, Love -- [Zodiac Suite] -- Swimming Lessons -- Sound---Part 2 Hearing My Daughter's Heartbeat the First Time -- Thumbelina, I Wrote a Song about You -- Ocean Song -- Hurricane -- Even Disasters -- "The Antelope as Document" -- Schottelkotte -- Report from the Daughter of a Blue Planet -- Gingivitis, Notes on Fear -- The Riot Inside Me -- Communion with Mary Lou Williams -- The Shape The Water Takes -- Sound---Part 3 (Ostinato): All the World's Wars Commence in the Head -- Mary J. (Upswing) -- Neruda -- One Impression -- Devil Music -- Theory of the Unheld -- Brilliance -- Black Winged Stilt -- Meditation on Your Escape -- Open-Toed Shoes -- The Shape Compassion Takes -- In Toni Morrison's Head.
Summary
Channeling the collection's muse, jazz composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, Hemming the Water speaks to the futility of trying to mend or straighten a life that is constantly changing. Here the spiritual and the secular comingle in a "Fierce fragmentation, lonely tune." Harvey inhabits, challenges, and explores the many facets of the female self--as daughter, mother, sister, wife, and artist. Every page is rich with Harvey's rapturous music.
