Description
Poetry. Found mothers, grief, lost loves, addictions and 12-step programs inhabit these poems of narrative excavation rife with lyricism and imagery. Unflinching, at times cinematic and occasionally comic, the poems in this collection will seize you in their stilled, dark complexity. Always grounded in experience, imagination, and clarity of expression, Moore's poems take you from her father's deathbed to the ocean's edge, from the visceral skin and bone reality of misaligned spines and developing breasts to the liminal (un)reality of chupacabras and ghosts on the stairs. Moore reminds us of the riptide, of the terrifying, terrible spectacle of this felt world, its beauty and wonder.
"Book of water, ashes and bone—Devon Moore's moving, elemental debut is part autobiography of toughness, and part meditation on desire. APOLOGY OF A GIRL WHO IS TOLD SHE IS GOING TO HELL is deeply rooted in the sensual delights and fierce realities of the material world: the smell of oranges, a morphine drip, wind chimes, a plastic feeding tube, 'grapefruits and Freon and light.' These shining poems open themselves again and again to pleasure, even while they serve as 'armor against the pain of this world.'"—Erika Meitner
"Devon Moore makes spaces that are theaters for the soul. She makes them carefully and fearlessly, shining light into the dark places, sounding the depths, taking their tensile weight and assessing what it means to be the living girl, woman, survivor. In attics, basements, bedrooms, back porches, shoeboxes, urns, sheds, rest stops and the interiors of cars are the material she must sift through to find her inheritance. Sometimes the spaces are exploded with longing or love or shame or skepticism. What I like best about Moore's work is the great reciprocity, the generosity that allows the 'closeness to what hurts us' be conducted into our being."—Bruce Smith
"Devon Moore's poetry is lifelike—revealing, rhapsodic, comic, and inviting. Even poignant. After reading her book, I've decided that if she is going to Hell I'd like to join her."—Michael Burkard
Author Bio
Devon Moore is the author of ALL THROATS SOUND ANIMAL (Cider Press Review, 2018) and APOLOGY OF A GIRL WHO IS TOLD SHE IS GOING TO HELL (Mayapple Press, 2015) which was a finalist for the Binghamton University Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Meridian, The Cortland Review, New Ohio Review, Juked, and elsewhere. She lives, writes, and teaches in Syracuse, NY.
Author City: SYRACUSE, NY USA