From a dark­ly humor­ous per­spec­tive, this book charts a young person’s nav­i­ga­tion of nar­row def­i­n­i­tions of faith, fem­i­nin­i­ty, and fam­i­ly. Con­fronting addic­tion, com­pul­sions, and anx­i­eties, Full Moon of Afraid and Crav­ing explores the strange com­bi­na­tion of won­der and long­ing that makes a life. Across set­tings rur­al and urban, Melanie Power’s poems com­mem­o­rate ordi­nary moments and every­day char­ac­ters: a road­side shop­keep­er, a neigh­bour­hood lin­den tree, a great-uncle’s hooch. Inter­ro­gat­ing lin­eage and inher­i­tance, she traces the unset­tling shad­ows that bor­der joy. A series of ambiva­lent odes pay a wink­ing, Prous­t­ian homage to the sense mem­o­ries of a Roman Catholic mil­len­ni­al upbring­ing in New­found­land. The long poem ​“The Fever and the Fret,” writ­ten dur­ing pan­dem­ic lock­down in Mon­tre­al, con­sid­ers how we re-exam­ine and con­sol­i­date our per­son­al and civic pasts in times of cri­sis, draw­ing time­ly par­al­lels to John Keats’s con­fine­ment due to ill­ness exact­ly two cen­turies pri­or. At times wry and light­heart­ed, at oth­ers ele­giac and plain­tive, the voic­es in these poems are con­trolled and con­fi­dent. Just as the stars in the sky are best viewed at night, this col­lec­tion embraces dark­ness to illu­mi­nate rays of moonlight.