Reviewed by Alejandro Perez

Ariel Francisco's second poetry collection, entitled A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship, features mixtapes, Dunkin Donuts, lottery tickets, shrooms, climate change, casinos, octopuses, lionfish, and UFOs. In it, the speaker isn't a philosopher searching for the highest good or ultimate truth; he's only interested in exploration. Perhaps the essence of the book is best captured in the first two verses of the poem "Ha, this one's about insomnia too," which read, "My bed is a godless church / yet I still pray there every night." This book, much like a person who prays without any faith in a god, is an embrace of contradiction, a refusal to hold or be burdened by a single belief. 

At times, the speaker is extremely pessimistic. Perhaps this is most obvious in the poem "Pessimistic Haiku," which says, "A homeless man with / a sign that reads the end is / upon us—I wish." The speaker is tired of life, and he further suggests it isn't the gift some believe it to be in the poem "Finding a scratch-off lottery ticket in a used copy of Frank Stanford's Selected Poems," which ends, "The dead are unlucky—/ sure—but, speaking for the living, / we aren't doing much better either." 

And though the speaker may not be at his best, he holds onto hope, refusing to be swallowed by pessimism. We see this in the poem entitled "On the eve of the largest hurricane ever recorded my ex tells me she hopes I don't die and, I mean, like, whatever." Ariel writes, "This is / unexpected. Your words I mean. / I hold them like a dimming candle. / Not enough for warmth, but it's / something. In this darkness, I can / at least allow myself this one tiny truth." These verses suggest that even in a hurricane, surrounded by darkness, there's some kind of light to cling to. They also suggest that the light is the hope of being loved, or the hope of knowing that despite the world's seemingly violent and indifferent nature, someone cares about us and the fact we're alive. They tell us that the small amount of love we may receive will never be enough, that we'll always get less than we want or need or deserve, and that despite this, whatever we get is better than nothing at all. 

At times, it seems that the speaker is at war with the world, and that the world is winning. It seems that he's weak and growing weaker in the face of a ruthless opponent. This can be seen in the poem "The sea can stand anything—I can't." With this title, the speaker confesses that he isn't as strong as the sea that can weather any storm that comes its way. He confesses that he's small, that he's fragile and can easily drown. 

And despite this confession of fragility, at times it seems that the speaker is strong and ready to face any obstacle that comes his way. We see this in the golden shovel poem "Harvest Moon –the tide rises almost to my door," which ends, "when waves reach my / home, I'll make a raft of the door." This poem provides us with encouragement to fight; it tells us we can find a way to continue no matter how close we are to drowning. 

Overall, this book understands that we live in a world too complex for a single emotion or thesis to prevail. It gives us permission to love and to hate, to tire and to hope, and to admit that we're weak and to stay strong.