Sleeping with the Moon

PEN Oakland National Literary Award, 2008Colleen J. McElroy's poetry shoots for the moon, and takes it in, too, in one way after another. The collection's award-winning poems animate women's experiences of sex, shopping, and dancing, while offering telling insight into the struggles and silver lining of lust, love, illness, and aging. Rich with vivid imagery and candid storytelling, Sleeping with the Moon takes readers on moonlit adventures under the night sky, through the barroom's smoky haze, and under the covers. ...Beware: such delicatesights have driven more than one woman to despairinstead she watched him breathe-- relishingfor a moment that secret space where nightgrows soft and the moon's detumescence forgives--and where if this jeweled light holds they mightstrip themselves of years if only for one night--from "In Praise of Older Women"