Moon Moon

＂ moon moon＂ (a questionably authentic astronomical term for a moon that orbits another moon) is a modern epic about eco-grief, written in three parts: Let us be done with this world, cried the men the men, and take it upon ourselves to go to the moon, having cast aside this big blue chance. And up they went to the moon, but it was full, having short-circuited with unprecedented quickness, and so they went to the moon’s moon. In the style of Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, and numerous other poetic epics that have come before it, ＂ moon moon＂ applies a formal approach to what is truly unfathomable to consider: speculation of the world’s end, and the spectrum of possible conquests to follow. The speakers in the epic are an interchangeable chorus by design, as personal and collective as the experience of existential grief itself. By continuously breaking the wall between reader and story, we are both separate and complicit in equal measure: Don’t look at us like that. /Don’t pretend this poem is about something other than it is.

July Westhale is a novelist, translator, and the award-winning author of seven books, including Unmade Hearts: My Sor Juana, and Via Negativa, which Publishers Weekly called ’stunning’ in a starred review. Her most recent work can be found in McSweeney’ s, The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, CALYX, and The Huffington Post, among others. July is represented by Carolyn Forde at Transatlantic. www.julywesthale.co