Landlocked: Etymology of Whale-Fish and Grace by Danelle Lejeune

… Danelle Lejeune‘s poetry has the power of a siren’s song, at once luring us in with delicate lulling rhythms that glide like “the flutter of a sparrow’s wing,” as in her poem “Broken Tractor” while chasing the elusive song-spell of “truth, until it turns to catch us up in its angry claws” as in “Milovat.” In its teasing out of the enchanting wonders in nature to dreams unwoven of a family past, Lejeune’s Etymology of Whale Fish and Gracewill leave you spellbound.

Where to find swarms of white bees, skin walkers, stillborn lambs, and splintered, blood-stained, jaggered bones of cows, sheep, and starlings dredged from a rusted, tangled past of rot and blood and mud washed from boots spinning out myths of modern Selkies, Baba Yaga, Ilidith, and Robot agricom farmers—all written in some of the most masterfully rendered, lyrical narratives being published today? In Danelle Lejeune‘s striking debut collection,Etymology of Whale-Fish and Grace. Lejeune’s precise diction and alert, perceptive rhymes, rhythms and lineation wonderfully capture this world of brood boxes, larvae, bone-people, blue-bottle spirits, and crawdads that inhabit the geography of her work. A sensual feast of language that rewards us ever more with each successive reading.
–Tony Morris