First printing: 1000 copies.

Caw is Michael Waters’s 13th full-length poetry collection. His previous collection with BOA Editions was Celestial Joyride (BOA, 2016).

Waters’s prior collection Darling Vulgarity (BOA, 2006) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and his collection Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA, 2001) was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize.

This collection is anchored by a 25-poem sequence focused on Waters’s autobiographical experience caring for his mother, who lives with dementia. The sequence covers aging, the experience of parenting a parent, and the gradual erosion of familial memory.

These poems explore the more animalistic side of human desire as Waters continues to push the boundaries of sex, love, darkness, and language.

Waters writes with taut clarity, consummate craft, and rich texture. His poems are crafted line by line, their intense and compelling narratives marked by precise diction, lyric gesture, and musical phrasing.