Blood Moon: Poems

By: Patricia Kirkpatrick

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Synopsis: &“Why would I expect to feel blameless?&”Troubled and meditative, Blood Moon is an examination of racism, whiteness, and language within one woman&’s life. In these poems, words are deeply powerful, even if—with the onset of physical infirmity—they sometimes become unfixed and inaccessible, bringing together moral and mortal peril as Patricia Kirkpatrick&’s speaker ages. From a child, vulnerable to &“words / we learned / outside and in school, / at home, on television&”: &“Some words you don&’t say / but you know.&” To a citizen, reckoning with contemporary police brutality: &“Some days need a subject and an action / or a state of being because it&’s grammar. / The cop shot. The man was dead.&” And to a patient recovering from brain surgery: &“I don&’t have names. / Words are not with me.&”Throughout the collection, the moon plays companion to this speaker, as it moves through its own phases, disappearing behind one poem before appearing fully in the next. In Kirkpatrick&’s hands, the moon is confessor, guide, muse, mirror, and—most of all—witness, to the cruelty that humans inflict upon one another. &“The moon,&” she reminds us, &“will be there.&”Compassionate, contemplative, occasionally wonderstruck, Blood Moon is a moving work of moral introspection.