Moonlight Rose in Blue

Moonlight Rose in Blue: Collected Poems 1971-2024

By David Cope

Moonlight Rose in Blue gathers over five decades of poetry by David Cope, a major voice in American literature whose works bridge the grounded clarity of objectivism with the expansive range of postmodern experiment. From early anti-war poems and working-class portraits to visionary meditations and love lyrics, Cope weaves a lifelong commitment to compassion, honesty, and formal innovation. Influenced by mentors like Allen Ginsberg and Robert Hayden, Cope's poetry traverses American life with sharp-eyed witness and deep feeling-bearing witness to war, labor, loss, ecological peril, and moments of transcendence.

This definitive collection includes poems from every phase of Cope's career, including selections from his celebrated books Quiet Lives, On the Bridge, Fragments from the Stars, and The Invisible Keys, among others. Whether writing in lucid narrative or jazz-inflected free verse, Cope builds a poetic language both elegant and accessible. Moonlight Rose in Blue stands as a vital testament to a life lived in poetry, and a final statement from one of America's most underrecognized but enduring poets.