Floaters

Floaters is a poetry collection by Martín Espada, a Puerto Rican poet from Brooklyn and a former tenant lawyer. Its title comes from a dismissive term reportedly used by some Border Patrol agents for migrants who drown crossing the Rio Grande, and the opening poems respond to the widely shared photograph of a father and his young daughter who died in the river. From there the collection ranges widely, mixing poems of protest against injustice and cruelty with elegies for friends, family and fellow poets, and with tender, often humorous poems of love and memory. Espada writes about immigrants, workers and people pushed to the margins, honoring their dignity and the bonds of community. Plainspoken and passionate, the poems join political witness with personal grief. The collection won the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry.