A Streetlight That’s Been Told It Used to be the Moon: Poetry Reading with Robert McDonald

Join us for a celebratory evening at The Book Stall as we welcome our very own Robert McDonald for a poetry reading featuring his new book, A Streetlight That’s Been Told It Used to be the Moon. Tony Trigilio, author of The Complete Dark Shadows (of My Childhood); Craft: A Memoir, and Proof Something Happened, among others, says, “Whether writing a letter-poem to Auntie Em, a pencil stub, Gertrude Stein’s Chihuahua, or ‘an entirely imaginary elderly diva’ (to name just a few of this book’s varied, intimate addressees), Robert McDonald’s poems are alive with surprises, discoveries, wit, and empathy. A Streetlight That’s Been Told It Used to Be the Moon sanctifies the mystery of everyday lived experience, inviting us to look for the ordinary luminosities we might miss at first glance…McDonald shapes precise notational and diaristic observation into poems of singular attentiveness and empathy, all while nurturing a warm glow of pop playfulness.”

Longtime bookseller Robert McDonald’s poetry and prose have been appearing in literary journals for more than 30 years, most recently in electric pink, Anit-Heroin Chic, Chiron Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Marrow, Gyroscope Review, The Madrid Review, and West Trade Review, among others. He’s written book and theater reviews for Publishers Weekly and The Chicago Reader. With Kathie Bergquist, he is the author of A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago. His first book of poems, A Streetlight That’s Been Told It Used to Be the Moon, has just been published.