Full-length collection of poems from the road, dive bars, and the wildlands.
The Moon Cracks Open contains 49 poems, 20 of which form the Field Guide: a series of species-specific poems honoring the various birds that have had an impact on Beaudin’s life and understanding of the world. They are arranged following the order used by most bird field guides, but with poetic interpretations of the species (or in most cases, of an individual bird) rather than scientific descriptions. The remaining poems in the collection range in theme from political outrage to lost love, from childhood memories to the quiet reality of growing old – all with a lyrical nod to the natural systems that bind and sustain us all.
Professional Reviews
Meg Kearney
“Here is a poet with a stolen quill in his hand and birdsong in his heart. Marc Beaudin’s poems dip and swerve and caw; if you listen closely enough, you might just begin to understand that the ache of the human heart can only be translated through the language of crows.”
William Heyen
“There's an especially remarkable moment in Marc Beaudin's poem "River Music": He says, after floating in the Cheyenne River, "I hope that the toxins I have absorbed / will leave this river / some small part cleaner, // and will shine on my skin like a mirror." Not only does he want to sacrifice himself for the restoration of the primal but wants us to see ourselves in him, in the body of his work, in poetry itself. The Moon Cracks Open is spoken with such honesty and openness, and written with the blood of such a lyric eye, that we do.”
Doug Peacock
“Beaudin delivers another fine collection of poems from the heartland. Like Roethke, the poems are rooted in the soil, sung from thickets and hooted in the night. Unlike Roethke, Beaudin reveals an incipient nomad’s soul with distant mountains tugging at his open heart. This book should best be read at the edge of a swamp or high on a wooded hillside. I haven’t enjoyed such singing since Jim Harrison came west.”
(Self-published. Please contact author directly to order.)
Enter the pages of diaspora in quiet introspection. Bathe your thoughts with subtle humor; synchronize your spirit-sense with history-in-heat; fall headlong with eyes wide open into
