About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherBlack Lawrence Press

ISBN-101625571593

ISBN-139781625571595

eBay Product ID (ePID)20065119893

Product Key Features

Book TitleMoon Moon

Number of Pages60 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2025

TopicEpic, Subjects & Themes / Places, General, Lgbt

GenrePoetry

AuthorJuly Westhale

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Length8.5 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

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, "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

Table Of Contentthe moon' s moon must be colder than the moon[we know not what we do]I.like all epics, our heroes begin by suckling the breast of genrein which we actually landed on the first moon, in which the first moon is the wombthe world as it isthe world as it ishero physiologythe world as voltapublic service announcementpublic service announcementlet it be said that the animals noticed firstsix crows hold sermon on a frayed telephone line from the mouth of the gift horsehow it is said the world began: big banghow it is said the world began: creationismhow it is said the world began: evolutionfor times they think you hang the moonthen the gods said go, in the form of vast fireswith nowhere left to go, the heroes shot for the moonthe naysayers were in two camps : camp onethe naysayers were in two camps : camp twothe gods are generous in this waylet us be done with this worldII.on the spaceship, which seated only twenty, a man tells his daughter that the ice below is a fjordon watching a woman watching a man tell a story of the world to a listening childhero philosophy 101enter the oracles and other Otherslog from unknown hero, date rubbed offIt was too dark and then we were alonewhen we reached the moon' s moon, we were surprised it had two capital cities, like Boliviadid we pass heavenin which the heroes become the antagonistscapital city number oneaubade for earthnocturne for eartho cosmonaut, o astronaut, o all-for-naughtcapital city number twothe day the rescue ship came from our old blue base, you were in the moon' s moon' s oceanIII.it is too easy to say miragegenesisare there ghosts on the moon' s moon[as the scientists headed back to their ship]

Synopsis" 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., In the style of Gilgamesh , The Odyssey , and poetic epics that have come before it, moon moon by July Westhale 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. A moon' s moon is a questionably authentic astronomical term for a moon that orbits another moon. Whether rooted in logic, or merely a cosmically precise description of " space trash," moon moon is a collection that observes worlds: above, below, and inside of. These poems are rife with chaotic eco-grief and undercut with dark humor and strangeness: Whitney Houston as two oracles to the moon of the moon, humans as gods as humans again. Westhale takes us from the world to the moon, to the moon of the moon, and back again-- sometimes scientifically, often experientially, and always obsessively. This is a collection for anyone who holds curiosity, exploration, and the existentialism of climate change simultaneously. It is for the truest astronauts among us.