A wide-ranging consideration of water’s plenitude and paucity—and of our relationship to its many forms Water is quotidian, ubiquitous, precious, and precarious. With their roots in this element, the authors of Water’s Edge reflect on our natural environment: its forms, textures, and stewardship. Born from a colloquium organized by the editors at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, the anthology features a diverse group of writers and artists from half a dozen countries, from different fields of scholarship and practice: artists, biologists, geologists, poets, ecocritics, actors, and anthropologists. The contributors explore and celebrate water while reflecting on its disturbances and pollution, and their texts and art play with the boundaries by which we differentiate literary forms. In the creative nonfiction, poetry, and visual art collected here, water moves from backdrop to subject. Ashley Dawson examines the effects of industrial farming on the health of local ecosystems and economies. Painter Kulvinder Kaur Dhew captures water’s brilliance and multifaceted reflections through a series of charcoal pieces that interlace the collection. Poet Arthur Sze describes the responsibility involved in the careful management of irrigation ditches in New Mexico. Rather than concentrating their thoughts into a singular, overwhelming argument, the authors circulate moments of apprehension, intimation, and felt experience. They are like tributaries, each carrying, in a distinctive style, exigent and often intimate reports concerning a substance upon which all living organisms depend. Contributions by Coral Bracho, Akiko Busch, Ashley Dawson, Kulvinder Kaur Dhew, Brenda Hillman, Maya Khosla, Will McGrath, José-Luis Moctezuma, Zoe Nyssa, Ailsa Piper, Elizabeth Rush, Cole Swensen, Arthur Sze, Wendy Woodson, Atul Bhalla, Samuel Gregoire and Colin Channer.

Table of Contents:
NOTE TO THE READER WRITING ON WATER, AN INTRODUCTION — Lenore Manderson and Forrest Gander SANGAM ACOUSTICS: IMMIGRANT SEA — Forrest Gander THE LAKE AND THE CITY — JosÉ-Luis Moctezuma CHICKEN SHIT & THE CHESAPEAKE BAY| Ashley Dawson EPHEMERA — Kulvinder Kaur Dhew CALLING THE KINGS BACK UP A RIVER THEY LOST — Maya Khosla TAKING MEASURE — Akiko Busch GIANT TUNA — Maya Khosla NOTES ON AN IMPURE HYDROPOETICS & THE WATER MOLECULE — Brenda Hillman SEASIDE HALLUCINATION — Will McGrath ACEQUIAS AS QUIPUS, QUIPUS AS POEMS — Arthur Sze ATLAS WITH SHIFTING EDGES — Elizabeth Rush TRANSFORMOCEAN — Samuel Gregoire, translated by Forrest Gander DIPPING IN — Lenore Manderson ROOTS — Colin Channer HIGHWATER NOCTURNE — Kulvinder Kaur Dhew LIVING WITH THE RIVER — Cole Swensen       STILL, LIFE — Ailsa Piper THE WATERS WILL REMEMBER — Atul Bhalla GULF — Kulvinder Kaur Dhew SOURCING THE STREAM — Wendy Woodson EURYCEA — Zoe Nyssa WATER’S LUBRICIOUS EDGES — Coral Bracho, translated by Forrest Gander ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS