moon moon

Overview

“moon moon” (a questionably authentic astronomical term for a moon that orbits another moon) is a modern epic about eco-grief, written in three parts: Let us be done with this world, cried the men the men, and take it upon ourselves to go to the moon, having cast aside this big blue chance. And up they went to the moon, but it was full, having short-circuited with unprecedented quickness, and so they went to the moon’s moon. In the style of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, and numerous other poetic epics that have come before it, “moon moon” applies a formal approach to what is truly unfathomable to consider: speculation of the world’s end, and the spectrum of possible conquests to follow. The speakers in the epic are an interchangeable chorus by design, as personal and collective as the experience of existential grief itself. By continuously breaking the wall between reader and story, we are both separate and complicit in equal measure: Don’t look at us like that. /Don’t pretend this poem is about something other than it is.

Reviews

"July Westhale’s work has an investigative and improvisational quality that makes moon moon an endless surprise. Reading this book is like opening a homunculus that never ends. These poems are funny and strange and compellingly probe at a question Westhale asks: 'Does it matter to us more to be understood, or to inhabit?' To explore the tension between comprehension and ownership, connection and possession, especially as it relates to our mistreatment of the natural world, she shifts the frame of our experience to other spaces and realms, so that we might see ourselves anew." —Bob Hicok, author of Hold and Water Look Away

"Reading July Westhale's moon moon is like looking through a telescope-turned-kaleidoscope. Through this device, Westhale probes what makes a world--showing us that knowing its beauty requires constant shifts, juxtapositions, fragmentations, and repetitions. Westhale shows us a world that is elusive, simultaneous, and ever-changing; but always worthy of our love and care. She writes this book for all of those who have a stake in our world: from the gods above residing on the moon's moon, all the way to a baby living on earth. Inside the baby, there dwells the earth, its moon, and its moon's moon." --Fulla Abdul-Jabbar, author of Who Loves the Sun

Author Biography

July Westhale is the award-winning author of Trailer Trash, Unmade Hearts, Occasionally Accurate Science, Quantifiable Data, bright news of gladiolas, The Cavalcade, Unmade Hearts, and Via Negativa, which Publisher’s Weekly called “stunning” in a starred review. July’s most recent work can be found in McSweeney’s, DIAGRAM, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and The Huffington Post, among others.