This is a book of the inner sea. Language, concept, and form alternate holding the depths. That broken diamond of sun on rough waters: she speaks egalitarian. That cool glass of viridian water just within reach of the surface: water daemons flit through meaning. Obeying the dictates of water, Put Your Hand in Mine guides us through a deep love of the world and all beings in it. It matters not, the pain, nor the broken flippers, nor the sting in old wounds. Reading this is a cleansing, a claim of survival against iron pleats of loneliness.

Elaine Woo is a poet, artist, and librettist. Her second poetry collection, Put Your Hand in Mine (Signature Editions, 2019), follows her debut book, Cycling with the Dragon (Nightwood Editions, 2014). Her work appears in Elephant Journal, EVENT, Prism International, Grain, ARC, carte blanche, Otoliths, S/tick and h&. Also, she is a contributor to the anthologies, Veils, Halos, & Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression & Empowerment of Women, Shy, V6A: Writing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and The Enpipe Line: 70,000+ kilometres of poetry written in resistance to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines proposal. Elaine's art song collaboration with Daniel Marshall, "Night-time Symphony," won a Boston Metro Opera festival prize, 2013. Born in Saskatchewan, she resides on British Columbia's west coast.

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