It is so refreshing to discover a poet as rapturously rich with magic as Logan February. In Painted Blue with Saltwater, the poet swims with sea monsters, becomes a feather, becomes a window, becomes a safe house by the sea. This is the great pleasure of Logan’s poetry–whatever lamentable situation the speaker finds himself in, there is always a way to shapeshift back toward the light: Because I am / void & because I am vast & because / I am ocean. What welcome gifts, these gorgeous poems.
Kaveh Akbar
Saltwater, ghost-filled air, the fires of becoming a young queer man, and the dirt, the dirt of searching for home, for a name, and another name. Logan February’s Painted Blue with Saltwater feels at once ancient/ elemental and utterly new/refusing to order the world in the same or any manner. This collection bends and stretches lyric language to show us how a house is a box of doors, / of openings, of wounds, how the family’s house is far from a heaven where they have heterosexual sons & / perfectly grilled fish. Logan February’s speaker is both drawn to and skeptical of what this world has given him. He wants to talk to shovels / and ask them to be gentle. He wants to know do knives know what they are used for. This is a collection that will inhabit your bones and rearrange your sky.
Chen Chen
The magic in Logan February’s Painted Blue with Saltwater manifests from a needed eagerness. Sketches of boyhood & body cannot be negotiated without a level of antagonism & February’s collection does so beautifully. It’s the world that Painted Blue creates–filled with wings & air & ghosts & dust–that transmits the delicate yet heartening sentiment key to the work. February’s voice is salient & sweet; carving out much-needed space for young Black queer poets.
Jayy Dodd
Painted Blue with Saltwater is, if nothing else, a self-portrait. It is opening a box of trinkets and knowing who the owner is based on what you find. It is running your finger across a canvas and feeling the thick chunks of paint, imagining exactly how the artist moved their brush. February balances precision and thoughtful curation with a breathtaking transparency, from which we learn that to be vulnerable is to be strong. These poems are stunning. Read this book and then read it again.
Olivia Gatwood
