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.

Paperback: $17.00 list price

Bookshop Amazon
Receive this book as a gift when you donate.

ISBN: 9781556597039

Format: Paperback

They Say the Heart Wants

what it wants, but no one tells you what it gets.
So here’s a list, mine: tall grasses, blowing in the wind,

swirled glass cups, peacock blue, bought in Lebanon.
Fog off the California cliffs, dark boulders on the shore.

Billie Holiday’s I’ll be seeing you in all the old
familiar places, cycling through my auditory cortex.

Dogs pulling at the leash. Small white plates
of wild greens and beets. The time a man kissed

my hand when we met, then pressed my palm
to his cheek. Sei Shōnagon’s eleventh-century list

of Things That Give One a Clean Feeling: an earthen cup,
a new metal bowl, a rush mat, the play of light on water

as one pours it into a vessel, a new wooden chest.
To which I add a drawer of beeswax candles,

steam rising from a pot of tea. So much stored
in the heart’s farthest chambers. And though

he’s been dead for decades now, I still feel the kiss.
My whole arm shivers with its half-life.

About the Author

Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California, born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Her first book, The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Award. She’s also the author of Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), a finalist for the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award. Some …

Read more

Reviews

“This elegiac outing from Laméris is a testament to indelible love, offering a maelstrom of memory that briefly resurrects those she mourns. . . . With this magnanimity of spirit, her poems demonstrate a foundation of awe, curiosity, and reverence. . . . Wielding a gift for imagery and threaded with philosophical acuity, Laméris’s voice is incomparable.”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“Blade by Blade by Danusha Laméris refuses grief as isolated by either time or place, with grace and thunder. The losses of both a brother and a son, two men remembered well, lead to winding and repeated meetings of earth and self. With the observation of Richard Powers and the casual brilliance of Gwendolyn Brooks, the book angles toward each and every subject and environment equally. The calmness with which the speaker catalogs what is gone due to environmental catastrophe and suicide provides a wide lens—not with distance, but specificity. The admirable volume brings on a new style for Laméris, making her poems utterly recognizable.”—Poetry Northwest

“Danusha Laméris’ third collection is a book of marvel, microscopic observation, and untamed want. Out of a ‘hungry mouth,’ Blade by Blade moves through the earth with joyful precision. Following the deaths of her brother and son, Laméris searches for pleasure and connection. . . . The earth and all its lush, terrifying landscapes provide the speaker sensual delight and new beginnings.”—Turi Sioson, Only Poems