Description

Bottom Feeders

by Arielle Hebert
Format: Paperback
ISBN-13: 9781625572194

Growing up on Florida’s Gulf Coast means learning to live with beauty and disaster at the same time.

In Bottom Feeders, poet Arielle Hebert captures the glittering and grim realities of queer adolescence during the late 2000s opioid epidemic. Set amid beach towns, hurricanes, red tide blooms, and economic uncertainty, this powerful debut poetry collection explores love, addiction, friendship, grief, and survival through the eyes of young people coming of age in a landscape where danger often lurks just beneath the surface.

Drawing on the unique atmosphere of Sarasota and Florida’s Gulf Coast, Hebert transforms the region’s heat, humidity, wildlife, and strange local history into vivid poetic terrain. Circus lore, invasive species, alligators, needlefish, storms, and saltwater become recurring symbols in a world where beauty and destruction are inseparable companions.

At the heart of the collection are stories of queer desire, first love, recovery, loss, and the search for belonging. Against the backdrop of addiction’s devastating impact on families and communities, these poems reveal moments of tenderness, resilience, and unexpected joy.

Rich with sensory detail and emotional depth, Bottom Feeders offers a striking portrait of a generation navigating turbulent waters while discovering the power of chosen family, connection, and hope.

Both intimate and expansive, this unforgettable collection examines what it means to survive, to love, and to grow amid circumstances beyond one’s control.