In the Hands of the River

"In his beautiful collection, In the Hands of the River, Lucien Darjeun Meadows examines the wildness and the wilderness of an Appalachian childhood. Here, landscape is ever-present and constantly on the cusp of change—mountains become scars, insect examinations become executions, and homes are one rain away from gone. His loosened sonnets grow in the woods rather than the garden and strain against the tamed version of the from. His stanza stagger away from the edge with a third that brings us and all our songs to the river." —Traci Brimhall, author of Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod

"In the Hands of the River is a stunning and harrowing debut collection. With exquisite attention, Lucien Darjeun Meadows draws us deeply into an Appalachian landscape where 'mountains rub their shoulders blue / With horizon and a father's scent is an 'open parenthesis of ginseng and smoke.' These poems are so vivid and unflinching, and so richly intertwined with the elements. I felt the title's promise at every turn: held by the river of Meadows' language, carried into music and truth, carving a way toward 'the thrill of light.'" —Chloe Honum, author of The Lantern Room

"Nestled in the hollers of Appalachia, Lucien Darjeun Meadows’ poems serve both as an ode and an elegy to the place of his upbringing. The poems of In the Hands of the River center on the body through which this landscape—and the stories of those who inhabit it—passes through. I admire this book for its unflinching, aching look at the intersection of queerness and Appalachia, for its complicated portrait of an absent father and a son’s self-demolition, for its attention to the beauty tucked within brutality. In the Hands of the River is an important, stunning debut." —Jacques J. Rancourt, author of Brocken Spectre​​​​​​​

"Singing deep and clear from the hollers of Appalachia, Lucien Darjeun Meadows offers us an extraordinary debut. The poet speaks at once from the interiors and the precipices of home, of heritage, of body and land, inhabiting both the lip of the well and its source. Each poem, each line, vines this book into a coming-of-age opus that is vivid and lush, fierce and arresting, luminous with wonder and heartbreak." 

—Jennifer Elise Foerster, author of The Maybe-Bird

"What an astonishing debut Lucien Darjeun Meadows has given readers with In the Hands of the River. This collection of poems, with its singular clarity and incisive imagery, documents all manner of beauty despite a life of terror and deprivation. In these poems, West Virginia is a land of natural wonder and terrifying need, where fear scars the land and its people. But Lucien Darjeun Meadows avoids all the cliches about generational poverty in language that soars and drifts, rising like a prayer over this speaker's ever-shifting youth. Lucien Darjeun Meadows loves language, loves song, and loves the hard difficulties of a life lived on the margins, as one who looks at the river and finds in it the salvation needed to witness all this fierce Appalachian beauty." —Allison Joseph, author of Confessions of a Barefaced Woman