Blade by Blade (Danusha Laméris)

Danusha Laméris’s third book, Blade by Blade, is a book of hungers: Hunger for the bright glare of poppies, for the hidden name of the beloved, for the cracked continental edge, for all we keep in “the heart’s farthest chambers.” Seeking a way back to joy following the deaths of her son and brother, the poet finds wonder in the furred legs of a caterpillar, in egrets, elephants, and elk, solace in the seagull’s speckled egg. Here we taste a longing to kiss in the dark corner of the gym, to leap into a volcano’s molten fire, to be unraveled, undone thread by thread, made one with all things. Microscopic and tidal, earthquake and fire-prone, Blade by Blade thrives in the underbrush of human emotion. These poems are luminous missives tossed on the wind asking us to re-enter the world we’ve forsaken, to set foot, as if for the first time, on the green earth and begin again.