In Ill Weathers & Other Fates, Blair Hamelink explores the floodgates of a tempestuous world he has conjured, blending characters real and surreal, such as Hart Crane, Ophelia, Tilikum, and an array of rainy-day women. While in concert with Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in this work, Shakespeare's sorcerer of weathers, Prospero, has been recast as, “the garrulous us, all bark, built like a fleet of doldrums in rue.” Blair’s speaker observes a sudden change in the weather, and remorse echoes throughout. The title is a play on a line from The “It is a foul weather in us all.” That foulness has turned into an illness, internally in psyche and externally in meteorology. In this chapbook, water is memory, celebration, and the end. With a strong appreciation for the elegy, this work rhythmically plays with tides and fates that are grim, but also divine, lighthearted, surreal, and humorous.