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Ulla! Ulla!
A debut poetry collection Ulla! Ulla! is a collection exploring themes of suppression—social and domestic, earthly and human, self-censoring and oppressive. The collection gets its title from The War of The Worlds’ Martian death noise, “ulla!” which was censored since the alien cries were deemed too frightening.
In both domestic and public life we grapple with power and perspective. Who gets a voice? How do they get to speak? When does one remain silent? Or speak out? Questions explored in this collection without a pat set of answers, because despite the great challenge in forging connections in exterior spaces, it seems the speaker’s interior life may be the most dystopian.
In both domestic and public life we grapple with power and perspective. Who gets a voice? How do they get to speak? When does one remain silent? Or speak out? Questions explored in this collection without a pat set of answers, because despite the great challenge in forging connections in exterior spaces, it seems the speaker’s interior life may be the most dystopian.
80 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 4, 2018
Ulla! Ulla! begins with 100,000 blades of grass and ends with water eating stone. In between we find ourselves sometimes within a world of too little realism and other times within a world of too much. Perhaps the “why, why, why of things not explained to ourselves” frightens us the most—the alien sound of this “sad and strange tale” of human existence necessarily translated as human persistence.
Jeff Hardin, author of NO OTHER KIND OF WORLD
Like the listeners frightened by sounds of imaginary aliens, Moore’s readers will be wary of this world’s facts and fictions. Much of this book lies between what has happened and what could have happened. With impressive authority, Moore keeps us in limbo, and manages to root us in specific spaces, whether the realities of Ferguson, MO, Captain Kirk’s oddities, or the tragedy of cancer. A testament to Moore’s immense talent, this is a fantastic book.
Erica Dawson, author of THE SMALL BLADES HURT
Ulla! Ulla! is a collection that moves deftly between the “delicacies of the moment” and the natural world. As a poet, Moore’s eye is both subtle and adept; able to note with equal precision both the beauty and the terror that surrounds us. This is a book of hard-won knowledge, filled with vital work that reminds us to be human, to understand how even what is diseased and decayed can also be the locus of unimaginable beauty.
Steve Kistulentz, author of Little Black Daydream
“Ulla! Ulla!”—the death moan of Martians in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds doubles as the clarion signal for attack, dystopia, and ultimate destruction in Catherine Moore’s unsettling and profound debut poetry collection. This war, readers are immediately grounded in, tunnels inward to the brokenhearted poems of the speaker’s life. In Ulla! Ulla!, Moore walks the earth’s surface as if it’s a foreign planet, elegantly collecting our human remains “in the after-swallow.”
Sandra Marchetti - author of Confluence and Sight Lines
Jeff Hardin, author of NO OTHER KIND OF WORLD
Like the listeners frightened by sounds of imaginary aliens, Moore’s readers will be wary of this world’s facts and fictions. Much of this book lies between what has happened and what could have happened. With impressive authority, Moore keeps us in limbo, and manages to root us in specific spaces, whether the realities of Ferguson, MO, Captain Kirk’s oddities, or the tragedy of cancer. A testament to Moore’s immense talent, this is a fantastic book.
Erica Dawson, author of THE SMALL BLADES HURT
Ulla! Ulla! is a collection that moves deftly between the “delicacies of the moment” and the natural world. As a poet, Moore’s eye is both subtle and adept; able to note with equal precision both the beauty and the terror that surrounds us. This is a book of hard-won knowledge, filled with vital work that reminds us to be human, to understand how even what is diseased and decayed can also be the locus of unimaginable beauty.
Steve Kistulentz, author of Little Black Daydream
“Ulla! Ulla!”—the death moan of Martians in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds doubles as the clarion signal for attack, dystopia, and ultimate destruction in Catherine Moore’s unsettling and profound debut poetry collection. This war, readers are immediately grounded in, tunnels inward to the brokenhearted poems of the speaker’s life. In Ulla! Ulla!, Moore walks the earth’s surface as if it’s a foreign planet, elegantly collecting our human remains “in the after-swallow.”
Sandra Marchetti - author of Confluence and Sight Lines
Displaying 1 of 1 review