In Related to Loon, a first year teacher turns student-of-life in a remote Alaskan Village. From the very first poem, we recognize Jackie McManus as a skilled storyteller—playful, serious, subtle, respectful, attuned to language and the delicate art of just enough. In the short time it takes to read her finely-wrought collection (interwoven with first graders’ marvelous haiku), you’ll arrive and live in a village on the tundra and wonder and won’t want to leave. This little book is an absolute delight. 

Kathleen Flenniken, 2012-14 Poet Laureate of Washington, Post Romantic, Plume, and Famous

In this series of narrative poems, interspersed with children’s haiku, McManus takes readers on an Alaskan adventure, a journey where the narrator recounts stories of teaching native children and her immersion in a culture that is both strange and wonderful. “These are not my words,” … “the words are old, 
because the words are sacred, their words the words of ancestors.” These are words that will charm you. These are stories that are warm and full of light. 

Karla Huston, Wisconsin Poet Laureate, 2017-2018,  A Theory of Lipstick and Grief Bone

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