Messages from Salt Water, Finishing Line Press (2019)

Sabrina’s second poetry chapbook, Messages from Salt Water, was released on July 5, 2019 through Finishing Line Press. It is a twenty-four page, two-part poetry chapbook which contrasts her childhood experiences in Japan with later adult years in Canada and the USA.  Displacement, cultural identity and unresolved relationships feature as predominant themes, while water symbolism unifies the collection.  Poems from this chapbook have been described as narrative, lyrical, confessional and imagistic.

“Sabrina Ito‘s poetry speaks to us over time and distance, from the seas of Japan to present-day Canada and USA. Its lyrical passages evoke nature in its varied forms and is an intensely personal examination of her history, relationships, and the conception of home. The poems, while accessible, exhibit an impressive facility for language. Like the best poetry, reading Messages from Salt Water is less an escape, than the tranquil meditations from an honest and interesting mind.”

–(Jeffrey J.Higa, award-winning fiction writer, essayist, and playwright. http://www.jeffhiga.com/bio.html)

“Sabrina Ito’s Messages from Salt Water is a delicate and nuanced meditation on the relationship between the natural world and our own personal history.  Her elegant lines capture the unspoken affection and tension that we hold for our lovers, our parents, our childhood tormentors, and the ghosts who linger in our memories.”

–Susan Lee St. John, Poet.

The Witches of Lila Springs, Plan B Press (2018)]

Sabrina’s debut chapbook, The Witches of Lila Springs, is a collection of fifteen Persona poems, each one capturing a moment in the life of a different fictional, female character. Some poems take place in very specific settings, such as New Orleans, the Cotswolds, or British Columbia, Canada. Quiet lives and marginalized womens’ voices are central themes within this collection. The culminating poem, “Witches of Lila Spring” chronicles the persecution of three female witches in a fictional West Coast town.

In July 2020, a second press-run of The Witches of Lila Springs was released by Plan B Press.

Reviews and Recognition

*October 18, 2018 – The Witches of Lila Springs was featured on  NewPages Book Stand under ‘New and Noteworthy’ recommendations for poetry.

*February 3, 2019 – The Witches of Lila Springs was reviewed by Nina Bennett through The Broadkill Review.

*April 18, 2019 – Messages from Salt Water (ARC) was featured on Newpages Bookstand under ‘New and Noteworthy’ recommendations for poetry.