Moonstain

by Ronda Miller

MoonStain describes the blood moon as it shines through tree leaves, marking the long hours of a sleepless night as it spreads from one point to another on a young child’s bedroom floor.
In this collection of poetry, Miller weaves stories of life, death, and love through her poetry, primarily narrative in form. From glimpses of her childhood home on her grandparents’ farm to images of a woman’s life, her loves, her losses, we learn of life’s stains, of moments that shape and become a part of one woman’s voice.

110 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2015

Reviews

[Maryfrances · Rating 5 out of 5]

The opening title poem, “MoonStain” sets the tone for this brave and intense collection of poems. In the poem, a child discovers a stillborn calf in the barn. She nestles in the hay beside it and puts her arms around its warm neck. In this moment, she knows death closely and feels “the spirit of the calf lift, swirl/around [her], disappear.” Her mother’s death came to her in overheard whispers, but this death allows her to openly grieve both deaths. In the second poem, “Stone Eyed Cold Girl,” she’s older and understands more clearly. She mourns and curses her mother for dying and leaving her. She says, “Stitch a wing from cardinal to owl to make the switch. . ./disjointed yet alive./ I’m an open wound. . . . breathe me back to life.” Thus begins the journey of this woman of anger and grief.
Orphaned, she spends her life trying to find love in any way, even in one-night stands where someone holds her close. She tries to make connections but not always wise decisions, as some of her acts are self-destructive with drugs, cutting, and random sex. We discover that these experiences are necessary for her to become whole. The prairie, the wind, the birds, and the rain become her guides and nourishment. They pull her through anger and confusion.
This book is a journey to finding her way and herself, and she learns to be independent and strong. She learns how to heal. In her final poem, she says, “I am my home,/I keep house with my heart.”
Through a variety of poetic styles, Miller’s details are compelling and powerful. She puts readers into the poems and pulls them from one poem to the next.

[Jim Potter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becoming Who We Are
In exquisite style, poet Ronda Miller shares her life-changing events in MoonStain. She writes of finding freedom in tumbleweeds that taught her “how to roam”, of feeling pelting “fresh summer rain” and “hedge apple sized hail.” But Miller can never know how different she would be if her mother hadn’t died—suicide—when she was three. As a result this child “was left to grow wild and free.”
Miller reveals to us the depths of her emotional turmoil and her desperate need to find her identity—before it’s too late—in her powerful poem, “Mama Slam.” In this composition she reveals how she attempted to cope through self-destructive behavior.
Fortunately for her—and us—Ronda learns she doesn’t need to be angry at her mother, or to become her mother. Instead, only by being herself is she set free.
--Jim Potter, author of Taking Back the Bullet: Trajectories of Self-Discovery

[Susan Hazlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ronda Miller’s poetry in her new book, “MoonStain” makes a profound music that leads us from the damage and pain of terrible events in early life, through the search for wholeness, and finally into healing. She makes it very clear that this is her story that she is bravely sharing with us.
The moon is the secret night light of the feminine but here it is stained, a ruinous mark left by an unintended act. The chapter titles of this collection show us our way on the journey under the various aspects of the moon, the gradations of healing into fullness.
The title poem sets the themes for the entire volume. We learn that her mother dies by suicide when Miller is three years old. She makes us feel the tragedy head on directly through the eyes of this child, her investigations, and the perfect descriptions of place that only a child would see. She could not be with her mother at her brutal death but she holds all of the horror in her arms, a stillborn calf, and takes comfort there until she finally “felt the spirit lift” and “the moonstain no longer spread across the floor”. This well wrought poem begins the section “Blood Moon” which continues to describe, with fierce directness, further “stain” in her young life such as destructive sexual encounters, addiction, and abuse.
The poems in “New Moon” begin to assess the world anew in the aliveness of the farm and prairie. “Barns Don’t Die” but they are “carried by the wind into the prairie landscape”. She begins to understand the workings of the inanimate world before she can move on to the personal.
“Moon Shadows” takes us into the present where there is memory of pain and new hurdles, such as an MS diagnosis, but she has gained strength in the face of these and now she also has the love of her children.
“Moon Beams” focuses on the positive forces in her life such as writing poetry. This is beautifully expressed in “poetry you have to”. There are sweet memories and lovemaking in a language that is brilliantly made more melodious and suggests an inner peace.
Finally, with “Full Moon”, Miller embraces a new self and a healing which is often found in nature, in “murmuration...the surge of connection”. We hear the brave voice of an experienced adult who asks, “why fear when I know which way the wind blows?” Along with her we feel the chance of real love, even trust. She can “celebrate as sisters”. There is still sadness and death but it is accepted as part of life and this time she is accompanied by her children. She has found that writing “soothes and heals”. Having come so far through so much, we are left with the extraordinary power of her final words, “I am my home/I keep house with my heart”. We readers are right there with her.
Ronda Miller’s poems in “MoonStain”, with vivid and well modulated language, tell of the human stain, life stains, and then show how they evolve into things of beauty, like this poetry, like the cover’s moon.

[James Benger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ronda Miller’s "Moonstain" is intense. There is no way to unread this book. It leaves its mark on you. The book is about love and loss, depression and hope. It’s hard to pin down an overarching tone for the entire collection other than to say powerful. In the titular opening poem, the poet says, “I am an open wound.” The claim is reinforced throughout the book as a soul or souls are bared and examined over and again, perhaps helping the reader gain a greater understanding of themselves. There is a cohesiveness to the poems in this book that many collections lack. Every poem is necessary and is placed perfectly for the narrative to remain potent from the first line to the last. For me, "Meeting Noah" was the most powerful poem in the collection. It tells of visiting an infant’s grave with the father of the deceased. What’s unique is that the story is not told in an overly-emotional or sentimental way (which very easily could have happened). Instead, the poem is extremely grounded and ultimately real. Perhaps even painfully so. In summation, Ronda Miller’s "Moonstain" is a triumph of verse. Poetry lovers of all kinds will find enjoyment and insight in this book. Be warned though, you will not be able to put this book down, and even after the final line is read, the poet’s words will remain with you.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: I'm reading a (short) stack of collections by four contemporary Kansas poets. This is #4 of 4.
I don’t read a lot of poetry and I definitely don't have any training in form (or lack thereof) so I came at these with an attitude of “I don’t know what’s considered ‘good’ but I know what I like.”

These are really personal, intimate poems. I get that poetry can be excellent as therapy, but this collection was TMI for me, plus the blood imagery running through the poems got a bit much after a while. That said, the words are well chosen and each poem is crafted with obvious care and sincere feeling.