The poems in Blood Moon recount the first eighteen months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Elaine Nussbaum's personal narrative is interwoven with social issues, climate change, and astronomical events, such as the blood moon that occurred simultaneously with a blue moon on Oct 31, 2020. The titular poem from the collection pays tribute to Marvin Bell and his "Dead Man" poems-
All the dead people can't live without you Marvin, and the live people cannot die
We are a country washed up on a beach after a shipwreck.
The tide is coming in, and the waves are getting closer
It is raining and we are naked...
Help will be coming in eighty days, but how do we get through this without eating each other?
______________
"She captures the sense of suspension we all felt, even as we went about daily life. Her view is both sweeping and micro-focused."
-Sherry Rind, author of Between States of Matter
"The poems in Blood Moon are shards of light wrested from a dark and chaotic time in our history."
-Gwen McNeir, author of An Animal with Wings
"I admire the ordinary details of a life woven into the fabric of a poetry of witness."
-Joseph Millar, author of Dark Harvest