Splashed Things

by Leigh Lucas, Maya C. Popa (Foreword)

“In my new life, I must learn everything again,” begins Splashed Things, Leigh Lucas’s dark humored and deeply moving debut that examines the chaotic terrain of grief following the suicide of a former boyfriend. With startling honesty and emotional precision, these poems tell the story of a woman in her twenties navigating loss, from the funeral service and her dead-end job, to her therapist’s office and the subways of New York City, revealing the way her beloved’s death infiltrates every corner of her life.

The speaker searches for traces of the departed in unlikely places—the physics of splashes, the history of seasickness, the science of depression—while confronting the limitations of elegy and the futility of trying to contain sorrow in words. Splashed Things is not a neat arc toward healing, but a testimony to the unwieldy shape of mourning and the persistence of love in its wake.

Selected by Maya C. Popa as winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize for its emotional courage, inventive language, and haunting beauty, Leigh Lucas’s Splashed Things marks the arrival of a powerful new voice in contemporary poetry.

Genres: Poetry

82 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 7, 2026

Reviews

[ayd · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my fav poetry collections i’ve read. honest, heartbreaking, and almost the echoes of a fredrik backman novel. happy i had the privilege to hear her read at AWP

[Perry Janes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Not to preserve him exactly.

Not to forget. Eye pits, no eyes.

Maybe the aim is just to come out from living in this room between he and not-he."

This is a striking collection of essayistic poems orbiting grief, and a kind of rebirth, all the more forceful for their spareness. By leaning into a journalistic mode that favors internal monologue and avoids narration, I felt this is a book as much in conversation with the poetry of Sarah Mancuso and Anne Carson as it is the prose of Jenny Offill and Michael Ondaatje. A powerful and propulsive read.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splashed Things holds tremendous power, humor, and hope as it plunges into the seemingly unfathomable depths of grief. Here, Lucas creates an original taxonomy to hold, analyze, and even metabolize those depths, dexterously knowing when and how to resurface or shift that taxonomy to mirror the speaker’s processing. This book is an intimate and vulnerable testament to the impacts of mental health and how love survives, however fragmented at times, even after loss. Beautiful.

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

If grief could be said to be transcribed Splashed Things would be it I imagine: matter-of-fact and deeply personal; sparse prose stanzas and minimal lines of striking beauty that "ebb," "leach," "creep," "drip," "drag," "foam," "lift," and "heave." These latter, the headings of the eight-part collection, could equally be read as nouns. Their sequence and choice underscore a sense of movement, intimate and secret, in an unresolved ambiguity while ceding the field to grief and wherever it may go—a surrender, profound and healing.

[Annie Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ordered this book because Leigh taught a course on creating a morning writing practice that was transformational for me, so I wanted to support her and read what she had been working on those same mornings. The poetry is inventive (playful doesn’t seem to be the right word because of the difficult nature of the subject matter) and shows the reader grief in myriad forms.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary, heartbreaking journey, and a book to share with anyone who is grieving or understands what it means to lose someone you love. Lucas is an incredible writer and I loved this book so much.

[Megan Pinto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully rendered. This book breaks my heart while making me laugh. I can’t wait to return to it.

[Gary Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful read, the words just flowed and flowed. Once I started reading could not stop until I got to the end. Reflections on life and a life that was.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautifully depicted journey through grief