Christina de Villier’s Long Coordinates is an old-time book of mountain tunes, of blues, of songs sung by a soul deeply enmeshed in place and trying to reckon love and all its complications. The language here is keen-edged and playful, breathtaking at times, and de Villier’s sharp, even gaze lights in one moment on ‘rare pears’ and ‘the golden mare drink[ing] / from a trough,’ then ‘styrofoam & leafblowers & greed & sports / utility vehicles & traps & rape & drones’ the next. Long Coordinates is an extraordinary debut. As the poet writes, ‘I’m mad for it // whole person mouth wide open.’ -Joe Wilkins, author of Fall Back Down When I Die and Thieve