Full Worm Moon

Like The Old Farmer's Almanac chronicles the cycles of sun, moon, stars, and planets, Full Worm Moon explores the profound transitions from promise to loss, depicting one woman's endeavor to "move into a third space / hospitable for another life / more rare, more raw." In particular, Julie L. Moore tracks the phases of a long marriage's brutal disintegration, a year as turbulent as the wind that uproots a birch tree, leaving it "prostrate on the ground / like one spouse pleading / with the other not to leave." Every month's full moon weaves through seasons of vicissitude, creating a new vocabulary for solitude without loneliness and endurance without passivity. As they delve into divorce's myriad aftershocks, Moore's poems remain intelligent and intimate; amid their stunning landscapes emerge both beauty and violence as well as a host of memorable characters: Milton and Monet, Charon and Cicero, Benedictine monks and Cooper's Hawks, clueless administrators and clever students, an oblivious weatherman and a philosophical neighbor. All are welcome, and in her lyrical, trustworthy voice, Moore guides us, with our "longing / for answered prayer," to press on and "practice . . . / anything but resignation."