Stephanie Niu has written a refreshing collection of poems in “She Has Dreamt Again of Water” that brings water in its many forms, the sea, a lake, a creek, directly into the room. Her cool thoughts float on the surface while deeper emotions trawl underneath or ripple in the current. The longing for her family is told through minimalist scenes that hint at past scenes, like the scar on her mother’s knee or her father hoisting the author’s suitcase onto his shoulder. And there is humor. Her date’s dad is a “psycho recycler” forming images of the man separating the chopsticks from the wrapper in the recycling bin. The sea’s inhabitants become prescient messengers—the dead jellyfish, the pelican with no dreams, red-shelled crabs migrating. Niu uses the same word to convey many stories. The ocean shell that sticks to her toes is also the shell of a memory from younger wishes. The shell is the rounded shape of a scar. The shell is the action of shucking snow peas, unlocking peas in a pod, the pull of a mother-daughter relationship and the freedom of letting go. The freedom she conjures through her poems is as wide as the sea she loves.