Happy Wednesday, readers, writers, and shark fans! We’re always so excited to see members of our Lit Shark community succeed, especially when they have a book coming out, so we could not be more pleased to share the news that Sandra Noel has just published her poetry collection, Into the Under, with Yaffle’s Nest.

If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll know that Sandra Noel has appeared in several issues of Lit Shark Magazine, as well as our Best Of 2023 Anthology. Her poem, “I am the wanting blue,” is still one of our favorite poems at Lit Shark to date, and it appeared in Issue 2 of Lit Shark Magazine: The SHARK WEEK Edition, with a Foreword written by Paul Gasek. She had additional poems in Issue 3 of Lit Shark Magazine: The Spooky (TEETH) Edition, Issue 4 of Lit Shark Magazine, and Issue 5 of Lit Shark Magazine, including her Poem of the Month winning poem, “Bioluminescence flashes in the pull.”

Sandra Noel unboxing her debut collection, INTO THE UNDER

We can feel Sandra’s excitement of unboxing her books leap off the page in these photos, and it’s for good reason!

This is a gorgeous collection of sea-themed poetry that unflinchingly examines family, romance, identity, and memory (both lost and false). It’s an incredible debut, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. We hope you will check it out, and we thank you in advance for supporting a member of our community!

Order Your Copy of Into The Under Here

Into the Under

Written by Sandra Noel

Yaffle’s Nest (July 2024)

ISBN-13: 978-1913122515

£12.00

To order, you can reach out to the team at Yaffle’s Nest, or you can reach out directly to the author, Sandra Noel, on her Facebook or X (Twitter).

I FEEL YOUR TOES AT MY EDGE

Swim slow.
Pause in my pleats
and listen to layers in echoes;
the story of water.

I tempt you to float with the warp
and the weft of the wind;
unclutter your clatter,
taste my salt breath.

I tease you;
just a few strokes more.
I’m deep near the boat lane.
Come, so I can hold your body for longer.

I want you to know how dangerous I am.

Book Blurb Joy!

Alongside Traci O’Dea and Sue Burge, I had the immense honor of reading Sandra’s Into the Under and writing a blurb for its cover in advance of its release.

A short version of my blurb is located on the inside back flap of the book. Here’s what I had to say about the collection:

“The very first time I read a Sandra Noel poem, I smiled, because I knew I was being introduced to something special. Her work was romantic and vulnerable, while wrought with images of the sea, a factor that immediately drew me in. Like her poems, which fire beautifully and urgently when read individually, Into the Under is riddled with issues surrounding family illness, identity, and memory, and these issues are often expressed through images of nature and ecological despair.

“Noel describes herself as a “poetry head who continues to dash out to the sea,” and she’s confided that her love of sea swimming and Jersey’s nature play a major role in the writing of her poetry—and I could not agree more. The collection reads like a day at the very edge of the shore, experiencing the shifts in wind, tide, and rising water around our legs, the occasional pull of a crab or seashell. Like waves, Noel’s poetry ebbs and flows between the romantic and tougher subjects of the book like deadnaming, dementia, and death, and there are illusions throughout to inherent violence or possible danger, though the threat jarringly shifts between people, relationships, and nature itself. While we’ve all heard the adage that water has memory, we also have to understand that how water appears and what it carries with it will look (even slightly) different with each wave, each tide. Though it would be so easy to wax poetic and wear rose-colored glasses when writing about the sea, Noel instead involves this large body in her examinations of her life, ranging from the indeed beautiful to the fraught and drowned. It’s a collection that is romantic, hopeful, and tragic in turns, and it will stay with you long after the final page.”

—McKenzie Lynn Tozan, Lit Shark Magazine

“Bioluminescence flashes in the pull”

As a celebratory throwback, Sandra’s poem, “Bioluminescence Flashes in the Pull,” won the December-January 2024 Poem of the Month Contest, and her poem appeared in Issue #4 of Lit Shark Magazine, our final issue of 2023, and Lit Shark’s Best Of 2023 Anthology.

SANDRA NOEL was born in Jersey, Channel Islands. Her love of writing was originally nurtured by the late poet and artist, Linda Rose Parkes, and more recently in various workshops in person and online. Sandra balances family life with reading and writing. Her love of nature in Jersey and sea swimming play a huge part in her work; often dashing out with a dry robe, tow float, and iPad. Since 2021, Sandra has been working regularly with published writers and Yaffle Editors, Gill and Mark Connors. Sandra started sending work out in 2023 and her poetry has since been widely published in journals and anthologies. She has been placed, highly commended, and commended in various competitions. Into the Under is Sandra’s debut collection.

You can find Sandra (and order a copy of her book!) on Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter).