Starshine & clay

Starshine & clay

Kamilah Aisha Moon

Book - 2017

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811.54/Moon
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2nd Floor 811.54/Moon Withdrawn
Subjects
American poetry > 21st century.
Published
New York, NY : Four Way Books [2017]
Language
English
Main Author
Kamilah Aisha Moon (author)
Item Description
"A Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection"--Cover.
"A Stahlecker series selection"--Back cover.
Physical Description
112 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781935536956
  • Exploded Stars
  • Mercy Beach
  • The Emperor's Deer
  • Angel
  • Staten Island Ferry Ride
  • Imagine
  • Samaria Rice, Tamir's Mother
  • Perfect Form
  • Felecia Sanders's Granddaughter, 5
  • Hunt (1936 -)
  • Five
  • The Oak Tree's Burden
  • To Jesse Washington
  • The Accused's Last Stand
  • Peeling Potatoes at Terezin Concentration Camp
  • After Rescue from Boko Haram
  • Eternal Stand
  • Shared Plight
  • To Théma, Almost Two Years After Your Burial
  • Still Life as Rocket: 42
  • Coup in Progress
  • The First Time I Saw My Mother Without Her Prosthesis
  • Overheard on Bedford Avenue
  • Cataracts
  • Initiation
  • Fibroids
  • Transfusions
  • After Surgery: Rescue
  • After Surgery: Invasive
  • After Surgery: Scar
  • After Surgery: Riding in My Body with Others in Theirs
  • Prodigal Daughter
  • Madear Tests Positive
  • Her Poem Stuns Mine into Holding Its Head
  • Family Ties Unlaced
  • Recovery
  • Another Episode in the City
  • Self-Portrait as a Bodega in Sunset Park
  • Torrent
  • Song of Solomon Remix
  • #1
  • Wish
  • Dear God Please Make Me a Bird
  • #17
  • A Golden Shovel
  • Allergy (Why We Can't Be Friends)
  • Ex-Crossing
  • These Are the Breaks
  • Umpteenth Coda
  • One Reason Why Parts of Speech Matter
  • Love
  • A New Nova Speaks
  • Goose-daughter Lament
  • Holiday Detour Through Long Hunter State Park
  • Bowling on Thursdays
  • What the Old Roses Said
  • The Spider's Lesson
  • Spring
  • To a Dear Friend Mothering Misery
  • What a Snakehead Discovered in a Maryland Pond & a Poet in Corporate America Have in Common
  • Voyeur
  • Love Litany
  • November Morning Prayer
  • What Is Believed In Is True
  • Cassandra
  • Stacy
  • Day at the Dunes
  • Catskills Retreat
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Moon (She Has a Name) rages against racist violence in America in her second collection, while also finding moments of beauty in nature as well as human kindness. The specter of police brutality looms large as she lists its victims, including Michael Brown ("man child shattered/ in a broken promised land"), Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice. Moon elegantly imagines the quiet despair of Rice's mother: "nothing bangs the screen door/ or needs new shoes, nothing eats my cooking." She juxtaposes these current events with their historical counterparts-lynchings, concentration camps, slavery-and a skillful sestina about a Jefferson Davis statue in Mississippi illuminates the lingering terror of Confederate memorials. Moon advances benevolence as an antidote to the poison of persecution. She writes of a deceased friend living on in the form of organ donation: "I must have dined near what remains/ of you, faithful organ/ thriving in a body." And despite instances of clichéd metaphors, she crafts some remarkable imagery, particularly when describing her mother's chest after a partial mastectomy ("Not a half-carved/ turkey, thankless,/ but a woman") as well as her own experience undergoing uterine surgery. Throughout, Moon explores the body and the many traumas it must absorb, confronting death, survival, and the space in between with grace and radiance. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

In language mesmerizingly blunt-spoken and honest, then sliding into starshine (the title as a whole comes from poet Lucille Clifton), Pushcart Prize winner Moon (She Has a Name) makes vital art of the African American experience. "The sight/ of dark skin brings out the wild/ in certain human breeds," says "The Emperor's Deer"; "They slay our young/ .& wonder, after centuries/ why we are not used to this." Tragically, many poems are elegies of individuals past and present; after Hurricane Katrina, a statue of Jefferson Davies clutches a Confederate flag, "red as blood." Later poems portray "winged, humming love" and note "ecstasy spilling from sax,/ from lips singed by smooth brown fire/ cooling in a glass nearby, neat." VERDICT Highly -recommended. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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