Slice of Moon
"Poetry set in the dressing room of Loehmann's or inspired by a school cafeteria menu:unexpected and sublime."—O, The Oprah Magazine“Dower (Air Kissing on Mars) returns after a break from publishing with these mostly narrative poems that mine detail with a whimsy bordering on hysteria. In this collection, the speaker manages to squirt too much mustard on her hotdog, have a huge tooth pulled (‘extracting my brain, forcing every thought/ I ever had out of my head’), and buy an iPhone with an app that lets users go back to pioneer life in 1872 (‘my girls tug at my berry-stained apron—mom, let’s bake—in my real world I didn’t bake/ but with this app I can’). She tells us what a boyfriend likes in bed (‘my other girlfriend lets me’) and why a girlfriend prefers sex with skinny guys. But a serious thread runs through these poems: caring for a mother who has dementia. And tucked in also are quiet poems from another place—a short lyric about the Santa Ana wind with a tender ending and a vivid recollection of a now deceased high school boyfriend, a moving blend of sexual experimentation and loss.”—Library Journal “The poems are bold and sexy and smart.”—Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet “Slice of Moonis a dark chocolate fever dream of love, of mothers. Kim Dower dares you into the dark. You may find yourself lurking there.”—Erica Jong “Kim Dower’s remarkable first book,Air Kissing on Mars, was on fire.Slice of Moonburns even hotter, its flames rising even higher.”—Thomas Lux