Can't Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown
by C. O. Moed
Cover Art by Linda Wulkan

Praise for Can't Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown

​

In her dazzling debut poetry collection, Can’t Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown, C.O. Moed speaks with boldness and authenticity. We are welcomed as travelers on an intimate journey through an inner landscape, from rough beginnings, through beds and bars on the Lower East Side, to maturity, self-acceptance, and true love. We are thoroughly engaged, charmed—and at times, disarmed—by Moed's unique voice, her talent, resilience, and wisdom.  —Judith Lee Herbert, author of Songbird

 

Some moments have the brutal truth and tenderness of a city street at midnight just after the rain. Hyperreal crisp-edged clarity, more honest than nostalgia, more hopeful than cold reportage—everything shimmers to the edge of understanding. C. O. Moed’s Can’t Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown is just that sort of moment. You feel the truth of it as both unexpected and inevitable, exactly where poetry is supposed to live.

— Matthew Hupert, 2020 Acker Award poet, author of Ism is a Retrovirus

 

C.O. Moed’s Can’t Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown offers beauty in unexpected, gritty, lonely spaces. Sinking into this poetry is a chance to witness and feel, fully and shamelessly: from the soft to the hard, the alone to the connected, the streets to the bedroom. Moed’s talent and compassion as a writer and her charming, no-nonsense humor create light and splashes of color, even when the streets are dark and hold uncertainty. Read this one with a wildly beating heart and wide-open eyes. 

 —Kathy Curto, Author of Not for Nothing: Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood 

 

Can’t Climb a Mountain in a Ball Gown, C.O. Moed’s poetry collection, is a collision of past and present, with language of blood and surprise, doubt and hope. Filled with longing and mischief, and “that cannibal called loneliness", it’s knowing “the exact moment it is all over so I can teach you how to use the washer and dryer.” (So, the beloved—the one who didn’t leave—won’t ever need someone else.) —Estha Weiner, author of This Insubstantial Pageant

 

This collection explores love in all its forms—complicated, painful, funny, and real—set against the backdrop of city life and memory. The poems are honest and direct, moving through relationships, loss, and self-discovery with a strong, clear voice. There is both humor and heartbreak here. These are poems that feel lived-in and true, and they stay with you long after you finish reading. —Francine Witte, author of Some Distant Pin of Light