Lleshanaku writes poetry that estranges everyday objects and images of people, imbuing them with a sense of wonder most would ignore or simply not see.

Sanam Shamiri

Language that’s at once immediate and new: a black and white floor is 'like a mouth of broken teeth, a baleen of darkness / sieving out new human destinies.' Urgent and original.

Nina MacLaughlin

Full of objects and souls, transformed and given wings in Chagall-like metaphor.

Sasha Dugdale

Details coalesce to paint the Albania of Lleshanaku's internal exile and, in the end, we feel blessed that she has invited us to 'the takeoffs and landings / on the runway of her soul.

Dana Jennings

Hers are certainly poems about history, politics, and power. But Lleshanaku is also original. When she turns her attention to love, the sense of human fate is unsparing. The tyrant's insistence that there is no private realm has the unintended effect of making it necessary to write powerful and durable poems.

Sean O'Brien