The poet Lynne Hjelmgaard was born in New York and has lived in Denmark, Rome, Paris and London. Her collection, A Boat Called Annalise, (Seren) records the years she and her husband spent sailing on a boat to the Caribbean and back. The author beautifully evokes life at sea, the dream-like nature of the tropics, and the halcyon days of a marriage.

The poet Lynne Hjelmgaard has written a beautifully evocative recollection of a journey she took by sailboat with her husband across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Europe. A Boat Called Annalise moves from scenes of risk and turbulence, of wild beauty on the open water, to visions of their dream-like destination in the West Indies. The author's clear-eyed and tender observations are as insightful about the paradox of paradise: tropical splendor amidst local poverty, as they are about the challenges of relationships at close quarters.