Heaven Was the Moon

In this perfect-bound chapbook of 28 poems from March Street Press, Kory Wells explores the influences of Southern small town life, contemporary suburban sprawl, music, motherhood, prejudice, faith, and more. Her mentor Bill Brown says, “These poems charm with satire, tenderness, and deep spiritual urgings.” Her first writing teacher, Darnell Arnoult, calls HWTM a “beautiful clutch of poems.”

Preview a few of the poems featured in HWTM that have been published in various journals online:

on Chapter 16: “Highway 64, Between Beech Grove and Wartrace“
on shaking like a mountain: “What Resonates“
on Literary Mama: “Hope Universal“
on New Southerner: “Intersection“
on Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal: “Phenomena,” first published in Kudzu

Heaven Was the Moon in the News

“Each [poem] is like a little story,” says The Murfreesboro Pulse. Read the article Poet Writes of Life in Murfreesboro in Verse.

How to Buy

The best way to get HWTM is directly from Kory. Unfortunately, the book is no longer being distributed to Amazon or other booksellers, as March Street Press ceased operations when owner Robert Bixby passed away.

In middle Tennessee, Landmark Booksellers in Franklin may have copies. In Memphis, Burke’s may have copies. You may also find some used or new copies in various online stores.

More Praise for Heaven Was the Moon

In a materialistic world, Wells seeks “flash of doe tail and dogwood,” revelations that “outlast wind, weather and memory.” Her crafted words honor Faulkner’s old verities of the heart: love, compassion and sacrifice. Informed with the lives of real people, these poems charm with satire, tenderness and deep spiritual urgings.

– Bill Brown, The News Inside and many other works; 2011 Tennessee Writer of the Year

All is motion and change in this perceptive coming-of-age collection. Uprooted young to suburbia, a “new frontier” of signage and commerce, Wells deftly straddles the “elusive country…mythic in its calm,” and the mind-cluttering here and now. Ride along with this seeker who leaps with humor and unblinking revelation.

– Linda Parsons Marion, Bound and Home Fires

In this beautiful clutch of poems, Kory Wells skillfully examines the space between restriction and liberty, the palpable way people and place pull at our lives like gravitational forces.

– Darnell Arnoult, What Travels With Us and Sufficient Grace