"Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Amadou Diallo, Philando Castile, and Trayvon Martin are just a few of the victims of race-based violence named in The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water,[3] Cameron Barnett’s debut collection of poems. Images of water pervade the book. They are often threatening, evoking an element in which we must either preserve ourselves by constant effort or drown: in Barnett’s hands, water becomes a metaphor for many things, most notably for America as experienced by people of color."
http://hudsonreview.com/2018/01/my-race-sees-me-three-african-american-poets/#.Wnh4EqinGUl—Robert Archambeau, The Hudson Review
"The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water is not a book to tear through. The care and meticulousness with which poet and educator Cameron Barnett deconstructs his relationship to his Blackness demands that we as readers slow down." http://www.wintertangerine.com/the-drowning-boys-guide-to-water—Noor Ibn Najam, Winter Tangerine
"In his vivacious and impressive debut, Cameron Barnett examines the intricacies of blackness and reflects on how identity is inevitably complicated by questions of race. Like most first books, The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water is, to some extent, a self-portrait, but Barnett’s poems never suffer from naivety or navel-gazing. Instead, they ache to reconcile our vast, imaginative, and jumbled inner lives with the inevitably reductive cruelty of labels, particularly when those labels facilitate the harm or obliteration of people of color." http://plumepoetry.com/2017/11/two-reviews-in-brief-2/—Adam Tavel, Plume
"As one of the four classical elements, water represents life, and symbolizes purification of the soul. In Pittsburgh-based poet Cameron Barnett’s anticipated debut collection, The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water (Autumn House Press), water serves as a complex and versatile metaphor. In “Letter to Sandy,” Barnett writes, “Water can be so difficult sometimes /… but pain is more than feeling.” The many references to water and pain (emotional, physical and existential) gush forth in powerfully perceptive ways." https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/cameron-barnetts-debut-poetry-collection-the-drowning-boys-guide-to-water/Content?oid=5655920#.Wig96otvYWI.facebook—Fred Shaw, Pittsburgh City Paper
"Barnett goes on to claim famous songs, architecture and the constellations. 'I learned so many things/could be secrets, but my love told me a secret is just a valley/ between a truth and a lie.'" http://www.mysanantonio.com/lifestyle/article/Book-review-Two-accomplished-poets-deal-with-12347554.php#photo-14526516
—Roberto Bonazzi, My San Antonio
"As a whole, Cameron Barnett’s “The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water” is a collection of poems reminding us that the racial harmony once envisioned by Martin Luther King Jr. is a goal that is as urgent and necessary as ever. King’s Nobel lecture encapsulates the way unity, peace, and love revitalize a people: “Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.” Barnett’s book only reinforces the need for King’s insistence that love, not hatred, transforms society." http://www.journal-news.net/weekender/2017/09/barnett-explores-complexities-of-americas-race-relations/—Sonja James, The Journal (WV)
"If you are not ready to confront racial prejudices, then these poems will disturb and shock. If you are ready to face, discuss, and absorb America’s racialization, then Barnett’s verse will fill you rage, love, and tears. Forceful, dominant and unforgettable, Barnett’s words open doors with fire axes and halt ignorance with a glance."—DM O’Connor, NewPages
