We Sailed on the Lake, Bill Carty’s second collection of poetry, consists of lyrics of spiraling awareness. As a signal lamp, unused, mirrors the sky, these poems reflect approaching storms, near-misses, and the violence inherent in nature, country, and economy. The poems in We Sailed on the Lake are closely observed, finding unexpected affinities within urban and natural environments alike. As one poem states, “to cross the lake / you’ve got to make each step / pertain to the water,” and these poems explore relationality in many forms, moving from gentrifying cities to coastal beaches, from the sculptures of antiquity to YouTube searches, cataloging passing days “of which light is the measure.” Alternating longer, occasionally narrative poems with short lyrics, this collection plays with time and ideas of promise, from youth to parenthood, noting how the self negotiates the artifices, be they technological or of self-design, that infringe upon reality and experience." "Bill Carty is a poet of emotional depth and conceptual range―fluent in both Wordsworth and the sounds of a stranded seal―making poems that can feel simultaneously mythic and modern. This book is a gift, full of large-scale questions about being human (I’m only as human as the last place I’ve slept,” he writes) delivered with a voice that feels genuine, sharp, and full." ― Matthew S. Olzmann, author of Mezzanines "The speaker in these poems comes off like a casually wise, funny friend trudging alongside you with a beer and cut-off shorts as you both navigate the indignities of the last decades. Despite all the bullshit, he finds enough worthy mystery in the world―and in language―to share. Carty's poems embrace jokes and straightforward speech, but rhythm and music drive every line." -- Rich Smith ― The Stranger "In his second collection, We Sailed on the Lake , Bill Carty forms an urgent argument for our fragile world, leading us through beauty and anguish, providing consolation amid desolation. Every poem bears a cruciality, an urgent observation about our impact on each other and the Earth. Carty plunges and meanders into the surreal and the material, writing within the domestic and towards the ecosystems of our planet. Throughout this collection, Carty considers how and why we make art and cultivate relationships as we hurtle through the ravages of the twenty-first century…" -- Sarah Bitter ― Ecotheo Collective Following up his The Believer Book Award nominated debut collection Huge Cloudy, Bill Carty's second poetry volume We Sailed on the Lake continues the poet's idiosyncratic poetic pursuit, one simultaneously concerned with family and commerce, the natural world and the urban landscape. Bill Carty is the author of Huge Cloudy (Octopus Books, 2019), which was long-listed for The Believer Book Award. His poems have appeared in the 32 Poems, Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Iterant, jubilat, Kenyon Review, Paperbag, and other journals. He has received poetry fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Artist Trust, Hugo House, and was awarded the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. Originally from coastal Maine, Bill now lives in Seattle, where he is Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest. He teaches at Hugo House, the UW Robinson Center for Young Scholars, and Edmonds College. "