Megan Leonard
Megan Leonard’s sparkling poetry collection Larkspur Queen opens with the Castle Queen exclaiming, “[Y]ou don’t know what my cells have endured / in this life or in another / unless you sit and listen / to me tell it.” What follows are six, awe-making sections of lyrical narratives that transport the reader to lands just unfamiliar enough to set the world we know off-kilter and make it new. Leonard weaves personal and universal tales taking her inspiration from the Lais of Marie de France, a collection of 12th century narrative romantic poems. “This is the magic,” Leonard writes, and readers will eagerly embrace the women of these stories: the Castle Queen, The Queen of Small Things, the Forest Queen, The Princess and the Falcon, the Spider Queen, and the Larkspur Queen. “Calling them by their names makes them friends,” the poet might say, and the reader comes to know each subject intimately brought to life in verse. “I will never leave you, we will find a way. . .” says the Larkspur Queen to her ghost daughter; Leonard’s writing holds this promise.