This ode to the moon is written and visually designed to underscore the cyclical nature of the moon’s stages. Using Quicktime VR on a 245 pixel wide circular strip, the view of this work is like being inside a ring and you rotate (or does it rotate?) to see its entire surface. The lines and stanzas in this poem have been arranged on this surface, spaced and indented in relation to one another to create a primarily horizontal visual progression. On the top and bottom of the strip are the stages of the moon, the way you’d find them on a calendar, signaling the passage of time as one reads this poem. The words also signal the passage of time as the speaker discusses her relation to the moon as an oracular companion in the skies, whose stages of dress and undress, bloatedness and thinness, continue to frustrate “lifetimes” of expectation.

Featured in Poems That GO.