Clawing at the grounded moon - by Darren C Demaree (Paperback)

About the Book

A narrative sequence of prose poems that explores a world in which the moon has crashed into the Midwest and the people left behind must grapple with the heavenly body that has come to rest on the bodies of everything they believed.

Book Synopsis

Part science fiction, part natural catastrophe narrative, part Midwestern Gothic fairytale, clawing at the grounded moon is a narrative sequence of prose poems that explores a world in which the moon has crashed into the Midwest, and the people left behind must grapple with the meaning of a heavenly body that has come to rest squarely on the bodies of everything they had believed before the event. The new landscape that develops both on and around the moon becomes more and more manic, as the survivors construct new identities that embrace or question the enhanced desperation and grief of their world. The poems included move with music and energy and repetition toward the "red-centered" reality where metaphor has lost meaning, and the people must decide anew what beauty and faith are and will be moving forward. Instead of the history they so relied on in the past, the nameless people can only trust "a beginning a beginning a beginning," and without any certainty of what can or will happen next, they are left wondering "what sharp names" are needed "to invent a new world."

Review Quotes

"In clawing at the grounded moon, [we] finally crescendo into desperation for something greater before our universal end. Reliving the tender image of placing grapes on the moon as the apocalypse looms, I believe it's possible we can find it before those grapes become stones."

-Nicole Oquendo, author of we, animals and The Antichrist and I.

"Each piece in this collection allows a tiny glimpse into a world gone astray. Hopeful and haunting, eerie and prescient, this collection is fiercely its own. Demaree's work here is beautiful, chaotic, heartbreaking, and, ultimately, a triumph."

-Chloe N. Clark, author of Collective Gravities and Escaping the Body

"These strange, beautiful moments are exactly what I love about Darren's writing; his concise turns of phrase, perfect staccato portions, are another shining entry in his oeuvre. A fantastic collection."

-Kolleen Carney Hoepfner, author of A Live Thing, Clinging with Many Teeth

"Darren C. Demaree's clawing at the grounded moon is, at once, dangerous and seductive, both love letter and warning sign. The collection of prose poetry explores the moon's myriad modes: as poetic symbol, as the ocean's heartbeat, as dusty rock, as celestial being of worship, and as terrestrial threat as it crashes into the Midwest and begets cults, witchery, sex & destruction.

-John LaPine, author of An Unstable Container