In Cetacean as Several the transformations of daughter to mother and human to porpoise are aligned, the resultant voice examining the complexities of maturation and embracing new responsibilities. Using scientific journals alongside inspiration from sea mythology and eco-poetry, Lavelle-Hill’s found poems explore the multiplicity of self and interrogate the shifting, uncertain boundaries that define what it is to be human and animal.

Cetacean as Several is a carnival of tender, surprising, and aesthetically on-point music. It’s a pleasure to read, I have been darting in, out and through it for a week. Always surprising, always intimate and always disarming, it’s the poetry I need right now and forever. - Sophie Robinson, author of Rabbit

Cetacean as Several is a wonderfully uncanny cycle of poems, which together build up a tender feminist lyric and a story of ecological shape-shifting at the margins of water and land. Mari Lavelle-Hill’s linguistic flair and razor-sharp images make each poem a plunge into new imaginative spaces and sensations: through these we re-learn the intimate strangeness, the transformative potential, of the body and the voice. This work echoes in the mind long after reading, and marks the emergence of an exciting new poetic talent. - Tiffany Atkinson, author of So Many Moving Parts

28pp