Eva Moe

  • Lemon Water

    Yesterday, I flipped through my journal and found the section of doodled faces. I wrote this draft based on the drawing.

  • From the Notebook: Fluency

  • From the Notebook: Student

  • Moonshine

    In the dark they called me Moonshine.
    That liquor in a glass jar.
    Holy water.

    They baptized me in hogwash
    made in someone’s basement’s rusty sink.

    Moonshine they say.
    Not the boozy white reflection
    on a wrinkled black lake.

    Moonshine.
    Back alleys.
    The kind you shout mistakes at
    Your footsteps echo in the rain
    Someone pees in the corner.

    I could be the summer sunrise
    The painted lake
    Gulls in the sky.
    My own name.
    But I’m stuck as the hooch.

  • shield

    you are warmer than fever in
    me that was
    the wing-ed beast
    of legend in
    me for
    a moment that soft
    pressing
    every where I felt
    light
    sun
    it was how light
    is so fast and
    blind to itself.

  • Rejection Letter

    Rejection is a red dodgeball
    lodged in your gut.
    Unless you’re a writer.
    Then it’s just Tuesday.

    This year I entered the 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship competition and was rejected. But ho! I just received a delightful email from them. As far as rejection letters go, this one’s pretty damn good.

    Dear Eva Moe,

    Thank you for participating in the 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship competition. The work you submitted was superior, with the result that you were placed among a small group of finalists selected from over 2100 applications. Your poems were read and reread with great admiration by our selection committee.

    We were very impressed by the high level of accomplishment evident in your poems, which makes it very difficult to have to say that, after careful consideration of all the excellent finalists, you have not been chosen as a recipient for one of this year’s awards. We strongly encourage you to apply again next year if you’ll still be eligible then.

    It was a genuine pleasure reading and thinking about your poems, and all of us wish you the very best.

    Sincerely,

    Don Share
    Editor, POETRY

    I wonder how close I came to being a finalist? Was I top 50? Top 30? Either way, I made it past multiple cuts. And even though I didn’t make the finals, this letter is still going to be printed out and placed on my wall.

  • New song up: Envelopes

    Hey everyone!
    My sister went on a trip to Pittsburgh, leaving the house void of people when I returned from work yesterday. It gave me some much needed time to work on this song and I had the final kinks worked out after about 20 minutes! (Then it took probably an hour to get a recording I could deem “good enough”. The damn song is under 2 minutes.) Sometimes, all I need is to be alone so I can say or sing whatever I want. That’s the easiest way to complete solo work, I’ve found.

    My new lo-fi track is called “Envelopes” and you can listen to it here. This one’s on Soundcloud.com, like all the others, because it’s free and easy to use. Plus, SoundCloud is like my music version of Blank First Page. Anyway, “Envelopes” is much less depressing than my other recent songs. Finally, right?

    Check it out if you have 1 minute 41 seconds!
    Thanks!
    -Eva

  • From the Notebook: I am selfish 

  • From the Notebook: King Arthur was a Tragedy

    “In the age of romance and chivalry, steam seeped through open hearts now it’s a gas leak up the nose and on fire. Love is now combustible. Love is now the library. Love is now the golden gilded spine of ancient text.

    July 1st 2017.”

    like: “love is now the library”
    dislike: “ancient text”

    Here’s the new version. As you can see, I’ve added a title and altered the imagery. This poem did not undergo a heavy edit, and that’s okay. Sometimes, I write a long poem only to keep one or two lines, or images, or ideas. Other times, like in this case, I keep it mostly the same.

    King Arthur was a Tragedy
    In the age of romance and chivalry
    steam seeped through open hearts
    now it’s a gas leak.
    Up the nose.
    On fire.

    Love is now combustible.
    Love is now the library.
    Love is now the golden
    gilded spine of mildew books
    that bury in your head
    songs and hatchets alike.

    Eva

  • Nancy’s Song