"A stunning debut that probes the fragile and fierce in the human condition with great poetic aplomb. These remarkable poems navigate the precarious beauty of impermanence, the tension between what is eroding and what lingers, where even the smallest moments carry the weight of what it means to be alive. Fiercely unflinching, the collection presents luminous fragments of memory, the grief that shapes us, and the quiet miracles that anchor us."--Elizabeth A. I. Powell, author of Atomizer

"Terry Belew recognizes the necessary marriage between birth and decay, celebrates the fertile sludge that yields life's music, and gives us poems that sift through uncomfortable realities. The Deep Blue of Neptune is grounded by a sensitivity to place while being elevated by the author's dry wit and flair for soundplay. This collection is full of stories and incantations that challenge us to look unsparingly at human nature. 'I know how much forgiveness is like a pool of water, //ordinary and impermanent, ' one speaker notes, 'until the impact of a stone.' We cast stones, we break and mend one another, we love and endure. This is the marrow of poetry."--Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode: Poems