Mountains of the Moon

In Mountains of the Moon, her fifth collection, Irene Blair Honeycutt takes readers on a journey from creeks of childhood through rivers and inlets all the way to the Red Sea and back again. The natural world has always been Honeycutt's closest companion and theme, never more so than in these poems--so many of them written during the forced exile of the pandemic--through which we learn the power of living within the paradox of joy and sorrow. This lyric, elegiac collection demonstrates the power of evolution and reveals a storehouse of treasures left by the dead for the living. In rich and surprising language, Honeycutt shows us how to transmute grief into a conscious letting go. How to embody forgiveness, accept the unacceptable. How, in a world that sometimes seems to lack it, to find hope.

"For over half a century, Irene Honeycutt has crafted stunning, cinematic poems with the wise, loving insight of the contemplative-and an eye, ear, and heart pitched precisely to the very soul of poetry. The appearance of a new collection by her is a signature, celebratory moment; and it should surprise no one that her latest volume, Mountains of the Moon, is her absolute finest to date. A virtuoso with narrative, the lyric and hybrid forms, Honeycutt's range is incomparable and the risks she takes with language are often unimaginable, always transformative. The yield of Mountains of the Moon is so lustrous-"something / bright and unforeseen on the horizon"-that one is evangelized by its prismatic brilliance, the abundant, reckoning light." Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate 2012-2014

Born in Jacksonville, FL, Irene Blair Honeycutt, award-winning poet and teacher, is the author of four previously published poetry books. Her debut collection won Sandstone Publishing's New South Poetry Book Regional Contest. Her third book, Before the Light Changes (Main Street Rag), was a finalist for the Brockman-Campbell Book Award. During her long tenure at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC, she received the Award for Excellence in Teaching and founded the Spring Literary Festival (later named Sensoria), which had a twenty-nine-year run. Other honors include the college's Irene Blair Honeycutt Distinguished Lectureship, and the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement and Legacy Awards, established in her name.

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