my lungs are a divebar

by Walter Moore, Grant Whipple (Cover Design)

Dr. Walter Moore (BA, MFA, Ph.D.)--lauded bard who teaches in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University--presents this dive bar book of guttural knowledge. Set in rural Indiana and urban Washington (some Texas too), these are "tween" poems for the everyperson . Poems that celebrate the all-but-forgotten beautifuls . . . an awards ceremony that offers saint statues to degenerates. Some "Walter Moore's poems are a hell of a ride down a hard highway. Read this book." -- Jesse Donaldson "Hilarious, painful, and outrageous - often in the same phrase. Drawing from overheard fist fights, willfully eschewed observations, and half-a-lifetime of wrong turns turned right, Walter Moore crafts nail-sharp poems and prose explosions with a kind of screaming, laughing brilliance that is not be missed. These pages will slap your eyes until everything you see shines." -- Owen Egerton "Here is an honest underworld of poverty, booze, smoke, fighting, loving, debt, work, and redemptive friendship. The players are self-deprecating and cocky, punkish and tender, absurd and sincere as they make fun of and try to hang on to their troubled America. Walter Moore is a terrific poet whose voice is soaked in the millennial experiences of music, film, media and seeing through bullshit." -- Henry Hughes

104 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2019

Reviews

[Cody Baggerly]

"Meditated a million miles per second
realized I am a bridge

still here braving the beautiful absurd

forgive me
forgive yourself"

This is not a book that asks to be reviewed. Full of poems that do not care if they're understood.

The reader might even wonder at times if Moore's goal is to entertain, confuse, or make them uncomfortable.

But I find that the answer is all three, while simultaneously making them alternate between laughter and deep, genuine contemplation about themselves and their neighbors. Or their lawn boys.

[Lauren]

Poetry that hides its eloquence by diving into the gritty corners of our minds few of us want to go. Moore’s work grapples with bloodied hearts ringing with depression and pulls no punches examining this bare-faced world world.