The Missing Sea begins in a boat without water, "surrounded by nothing," and throughout the poem series asks, Who am I without my mother? The death of one's mother is one of the hardest things many of us ever go through - and that we continue going through for the remainder of our lives. Yet, in the book, presence, not absence, prevails. An abandoned dog finds her valentine. Chickens from an imagist poem spring to life. Antique lamps bring a mother and daughter together. The Missing Sea is about reclaiming oneself after a devastating loss. It's about coming back, or maybe coming forward as one's whole self, for the first time. And Jen Jordan's lovely, child-like drawings capture the feeling perfectly.