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In How to Bury a Boy at Sea, poet Phil Goldstein is the architect of his own unburdening, offering a rare and unflinching glimpse into the effects of child sexual abuse from the male perspective. Equal parts fury and calm, Goldstein’s poems contemplate family, faith, masculinity, and survival, delivering a powerful account of recovery through verse, from silence and shame to healing and rediscovered intimacy and agency.
In his searing and urgent debut How to Bury a Boy at Sea, Phil Goldstein charts trauma’s tendrils through time, memory, and place. In a collection that names the sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a trusted family member, it is apt that water is such a profound and recurring metaphor-what else could evoke how utterly adrift such a betrayal sends a child? What other than water is deep and deadly but necessary and life-giving? Such is the brutal complexity Goldstein navigates with unparalleled honesty and vulnerability as he shares his heartbreaking story and his journey toward healing and survival. As he writes, ‘But we are so much more than what we buried.’ A reminder every survivor needs to hear.
-Ruth Awad, author of Set to Music a Wildfire
To read this collection is to discover a beautiful voice, a generous and courageous voice that speaks to childhood sexual trauma, its aftermath, and the transcendent power of love to heal.
-Jose Antonio Rodriguez, author of This American Autopsy
Goldstein fractures time and space as we witness the unraveling of the tenuous boundaries of masculinity, family, the body, and the self. This is a brave, lyrical debut collection.
-Emily Mohn-Slate, author of The Falls
