Muddying the Holy Waters is the latest collection by Chocolate Waters, a long-time radical feminist and outrageous performance poet. She offers a deep dive into the psyche of a woman who has suffered and grown for being different than her small town Christian Republican family. As a liberal and a lesbian, she is an outsider in her family's world. She owns and celebrates the misfit that she is and in this collection of poems shares how her family helped shape her into becoming who she was intended to be. Her process is filled with rage and desperation but also with compassion, healing and wit. And it sometimes takes "1 biggest fattest bottle of Tito's Vodka 6 packs of smokes 2 weeks Poems Poems Poems" to get there.

The book is a compilation of poems, essays and photographs and is divided into three sections. The first, "Impossible" diagrams the author's attempted relationship with a closeted Christian minister. From a hopeful beginning: "Possibly Impossible? Or Impossibly Possible?... the possibility of loving you/makes me long for the discomfort/of the possibility of us together/of who we might impossibly be?" to the almost inevitable conclusion: "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! (relationship encounters of the worst kind)...You flail your robotic arms./I flail mine./Two aliens/each on our own planet..."

There is much grief in the second section "Dead Animals," a litany of childhood pets who died too soon because of neglectful parents. There is also acerbic wit here but you'll have to read the book to discover it.

The last section, "The Curse and the Blessing of Mount Joy, PA" or "I'd Rather Be a Toad" chronicles the difficulties of a young woman growing up as a lesbian in a small town in the early 60's. It is the story of the struggle with her family and friends to discover that even though she does not fit into their conservative ideals and expectations, she is still beautiful, worthwhile, unique (and drunk).