Reviews - 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 Moon is 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
Moon burns even hotter, its flames rising even higher.”
--Thomas Lux
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