Moonlight and Monsters

"In Moonlight and Monsters, Lauren Scharhag dives into the spectral pools of everyday and brings us "rainbows embedded in grackle darkness." And when she dives, she brings the whole flaming, gutted church to its knees to feed "...creatures that some call pests and some call mischief, some call God." She guides us into the echoing velvet hallways of her Hispanic heritage and we are mauled by the nagual, we drown with La Llorona, we fall under the spell of ambergris-scented brujas. She leads us expertly with her prayers through her sorrows through transmutation into a kind of flashing hope in the ashes, and we cannot save ourselves from being burned clean from the cinders. We willingly follow because "In order to emerge, one must be swallowed whole." Scharhag has birthed a breathing singing thing in this collection, and we feel her labor and tearing of skin, as she explains, "the agony of creation is inescapable." And what she has brought to life is as miraculous and it is rare. -Scott Ferry, author of The Long Blade of Days Ahead"--