The scope of Trouble the Water is very much historical: from the Bible through several artistic periods (Byzantine, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and contemporary) as well as several recent historical events (the infamous BP Oil spill, the slaughter of black bodies in the past and present, and the current #BlackLivesMatter movement). The author's race and sexuality are inextricably tethered to the book, which is one of its strengths. Other strengths are its lyricism and attention to parts of history that aren’t necessarily trendy, as well at its investment in formal poetics. The ways in which Derrick Austin inserts himself into a heterosexual, white tradition to forge his own path as a queer, black writer are unique. Trouble the Water is a journey through the poet's moving experience coming out as gay. It deals with the loneliness associated with wandering the world as a queer, black body, a body that’s often invisible, fetishized, and distorted in other ways beyond recognition, and with the transformation of those feelings into art. The oldest poem in the book, “Apology,” was written long before Austin came out, and newer poems deal with these new trying times, where black lives are threatened and police are seen in new light.