In the Hands of the River

by Lucien Darjeun Meadows

“What can we do but seek nectar where it blooms,” whispers the porous and questioning speaker of In the Hands of the River. In these haunting, layered poems, Lucien Darjeun Meadows affirms the interconnection of human and environmental identity. With delicate precision, "In the Hands of the River" subverts traditional poetic forms to show how a childhood for a queer boy of both Cherokee and European heritage happens within and outside dominant narratives of Appalachia.

This debut collection weaves ancestral and personal threads of trauma, reclamation, and survival into a multi-generational and multi-species tapestry that reaches from the distant stars visible in an Appalachian holler to the curl of a clover stem and the touch of the beloved, here and now. Moving across time, yet always grounded in place, these poems address the West Virginian landscape, both in exaltation and extraction, balanced with poems about the speaker's own body, and emergent sense of queer identity, as “a boy made of shards.”

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2022

Reviews

[Gabriel Noel · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review

A gorgeous collection of poems intersecting a white and indigenous upbringing in the mountains of Appalachia. Deep and thought provoking, the poems on mental health and suicide are unafraid and invigorating. It make me flinch and then come back for more.

My favorite poems are: "Tongue", "Strawberry Season", "As Telemachos", and "Like Son."

[Marianne Mersereau · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a "child of Appalachia" myself, I found the poems in this collection beautifully reflect the bittersweetness that characterizes the region. I particularly appreciate that Meadows gives voice to his experience of being queer in Appalachia and also of having both Cherokee Indigenous and European heritage. The poems that touch on mental illness are especially moving and the book is replete with images from the natural world that give a sense of the both the beauty and degradation of the landscape.

[Jessica Gigot · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear-eyed reflection on the ways family, place, and landscape can absolve and convolute identity and purpose, responsibility and yearning. Beautiful and original language throughout. “Mouths open,/ We are the hollow their the coalsludge now fills.”

[Peggy Heitmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had hopes for this Appalachian writer when I first started the book. He has a lot of publishing credits. Seems like the more problems you have, the stranger you are, the more mental health issues you have, well that's what makes editors love you. That is all I can figure for this author who says he English, German, and Cherokee. He is also a gay man who is a cutter and has suicidal attempts and a friend or relative who actually completes the suicide. The drama seems to be drama for drama's sake. The writing is not that interesting. The one poem I liked is titled Night/O'rt (USVi).

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

ugugughghughughughughuhughughuhughghghghhh. nothing quite bad enough to call bad. nothing quite good enough to call good. think I've read a lot of these before, even though I know I haven't, which doesn't reflect well on the poems; a book so saturated in the idiolect of contemporary poetry one can almost forget the ideas it communicates are thin, spare, and common; there's an entire way of speaking about Appalachia that annoys the everloving shit out of me

[Lesley Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this debut collection just breathtaking. Lucien Darjeun Meadows evokes an Appalachian childhood shaped by damaged landscapes and people. The book has a lyric feel, complicated sonic textures of English jostling with Tsalagi, but loss is pervasive, as loved ones go missing and the young speaker, shamed for his queerness, starves himself almost to invisibility. From suffering, though, commitment emerges: to write Appalachia, in all its complexity, and “to remember the thrill of light.”

[Melissa Helton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous collection that skips across the surface of many big themes and experiences (queerness, cultural identity, the natural environment, self-harm, eating disorders, mental illness). At first I thought the book was taking in too many topics, but in the end, that's what life is like, right? As we walk through a single day, we touch on all these aspects of our history and experience. The poems are unsettling and imagistically beautiful and surprising.