Starshine & Clay

There are strong social justice themes related to the body throughout the book, and personas attempting to recover from different forms of betrayal. I’m going to some hard places, hence the title of homage to one of the best to ever write about difficult things with grace and power, Lucille Clifton.” –Kamilah Aisha Moon

“These are poems of elegy, justice, citizenship, and something altogether unearthly. Moon writes with wisdom, rage and grace of the slain, the stolen and the conquered. These are poems with the force to wake those of us ‘standing in line waiting as if life is business as usual.’ I find myself utterly ravaged and unreservedly restored.” –Tracy K. Smith

“Kamilah Aisha Moon’s unrelenting and gorgeous Starshine & Clay shows exactly why she is the poet we need in tough times like now. She is a fearless writer, one who finds unexpected music in our contemporary terrarium of violence. With persistent grace, Moon balances sensitivity to the world with enough fortitude to stare our cruel, collective histories in the face. These poems are testaments to lives lived and taken unjustly.These poems are full of the truths we don’t want to admit to—that brutality and suffering go beyond geography and race. That violence is more than a human episode. It’s the foundation for the way we unsee each other, whether in America, Nigeria, or what is now the Czech Republic. This is a poet who tells it like it is, but with a deftness of image & the kind of stunning wit that can make the most difficult moments visceral and rewarding.” —Adrian Matejka

We are making our lives up “here on this bridge / between starshine and clay” (Lucille Clifton). Addressing tough circumstances tenderly, this book is about life—what we inherit, what we create, what shapes us, what’s possible.