Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems
by Jennifer S. Cheng

Publishers Weekly “Best Books 2018”
SPD Poetry Bestseller
Winner of the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award, chosen by Bhanu Kapil

Paperback, 140 pp. Pub date: May 2018
Cover art by Maude Tanswai

Read excerpts online at 
The Adroit Journal, Foundry, Hyphen,
and Tupelo Quarterly

Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems
by Jennifer S. Cheng

Publishers Weekly “Best Books 2018”
SPD Poetry Bestseller
Winner of the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award, chosen by Bhanu Kapil

Paperback, 140 pp. Pub date: May 2018
Cover art by Maude Tanswai

Read excerpts online at 
The Adroit Journal, Foundry, Hyphen,
and Tupelo Quarterly

Mixing fable and fact, extraordinary and ordinary, Jennifer S. Cheng’s hybrid collection, Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems, draws on various Chinese mythologies about women, particularly that of Chang’E (the Lady in the Moon), uncovering the shadow stories of our myths — with the belief that there is always an underbelly. Moon explores bewilderment and shelter, destruction and construction, unthreading as it rethreads, shedding as it collects.

“Exquisite imagination…” (Publishers Weekly “Best Books 2018”) Exhilarating…An alt-epic for the 21st century…Visionary…Rich and glorious.” (Publishers Weekly Starred Review) “If reading is a form of pilgrimage, then Cheng gives us its charnel ground events, animal conversions, guiding figures and elemental life.” (Bhanu Kapil) “Each of the voices in Jennifer S. Cheng’s Moon speaks as if she’s ‘the last girl on earth.’ … With curiosity and attention, Moon shines its light on inquiry as art, asking as making. In the tradition of Fanny Howe’s poetics of bewilderment, Cheng gives us a poetics of possibility.” (Jennifer Tseng) “Cheng’s newest poetry collection bravely tests language and the beautiful boundaries of body and geography. This is a rare poet whose elegant poems create a lovely convergence of geometries and mythologies into something akin to ‘an ocean fever to break between…teeth.’ The assembly of ‘insect script’ in these worlds where ‘the sky becomes a chilled pomelo’ makes for a rich and deeply satisfying read.” (Aimee Nezhukumatathil)

“Exquisite imagination…” (Publishers Weekly “Best Books 2018”) Exhilarating…An alt-epic for the 21st century…Visionary…Rich and glorious.” (Publishers Weekly Starred Review) “If reading is a form of pilgrimage, then Cheng gives us its charnel ground events, animal conversions, guiding figures and elemental life.” (Bhanu Kapil) “Each of the voices in Jennifer S. Cheng’s Moon speaks as if she’s ‘the last girl on earth.’ … With curiosity and attention, Moon shines its light on inquiry as art, asking as making. In the tradition of Fanny Howe’s poetics of bewilderment, Cheng gives us a poetics of possibility.” (Jennifer Tseng) “Cheng’s newest poetry collection bravely tests language and the beautiful boundaries of body and geography. This is a rare poet whose elegant poems create a lovely convergence of geometries and mythologies into something akin to ‘an ocean fever to break between…teeth.’ The assembly of ‘insect script’ in these worlds where ‘the sky becomes a chilled pomelo’ makes for a rich and deeply satisfying read.” (Aimee Nezhukumatathil)

About the Author

Jennifer S. Cheng’s hybrid collection Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems, was chosen by Bhanu Kapil as co-winner of the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Award. Cheng is also the author of House A, selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize, and Invocation: An Essay, an image-text chapbook published by New Michigan Press. Her poetry, lyric essays, and critical writing appear in Tin House, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, The Offing, Entropy, Jacket2, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong and received fellowships and awards from Brown University, the University of Iowa, San Francisco State University, Bread Loaf, Kundiman, and the Academy of American Poets. Having grown up in Texas and Hong Kong, she lives in San Francisco. www.jenniferscheng.com

About the Author

Jennifer S. Cheng’s hybrid collection Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems, was chosen by Bhanu Kapil as co-winner of the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Award. Cheng is also the author of House A, selected by Claudia Rankine as winner of the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize, and Invocation: An Essay, an image-text chapbook published by New Michigan Press. Her poetry, lyric essays, and critical writing appear in Tin House, AGNI, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, The Offing, Entropy, Jacket2, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Hong Kong and received fellowships and awards from Brown University, the University of Iowa, San Francisco State University, Bread Loaf, Kundiman, and the Academy of American Poets. Having grown up in Texas and Hong Kong, she lives in San Francisco. www.jenniferscheng.com