Anne Leigh Parrish’s poems in The Moon Won’t Be Dared are an extended meditation that weaves through time and humanity, injustices and struggles, but with an eye towards love and beauty. These captivating poems carry an underlining ache of loss—past and future—but they are grounded in the present, in beetle and spider, in river and forest, in the windows that look into the yard. Parrish writes we can only burn slowly over time, and we see this book is full of light—fire, streetlight, smokelight, garden light, twilight, starlight, and in fact, darkness/becomes light when the world bears us/along. This is a voice willing to convey what isn’t working in the world, but also to always acknowledge what is—a child of the night/who lived on moonlight and cold sparkle stars. Parrish’s poems feed us, and they will hold us long enough/to tinge the dawn with hope.—Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press)