Mooncalves

$39.95

A deft exploration of personal and cultural myths realized in verse and visuals.

Mooncalves is Kathleen McCracken’s sixth book of poems. The collection falls into two distinct yet stylistically and thematically interconnected sections. The first constitutes a sequence of monologues, each spoken in the voice of a “mooncalf” – famous and not so famous individuals whose physical deformities meant that they were once designated “freaks.” The poems are an imaginative “writing back” which allows these marginalized figures – from the oracular Egyptian dwarf Khnumhotep through the Siamese twins Chang and Eng and, most recently, screen actor Peter Dinklage and visual artist Alison Lapper – to tell their own stories.

Mooncalves includes various art forms – archival and current – that have been arranged to give a visual perspective to, or complementary interpretation of, the ways in which these unique people lived.

Poetry / Visual • 7 x 7 inches, full colour • PB 142 pages • 978-1-55096-096-9