Disquiet

Kelly Michels

“The philosophy and emotional pulse moving behind the words—that and the flawless lineation of the music—just wouldn’t let me go.”

Jamaal May, Hum (Alice James Books) American Library Association Notable Book Award

“Kelly Michels’ collection takes us to an amazing elsewhere that is both palpable and magical, incantatory, tragic, and beautiful. Beneath the swirl of linked images and the muscular movement and music of the language, throb the stories these poems undertake, not confessional, not pain style, not complaint, not even recounted but instead revealed in a voice with its own clarity and the logic of metaphor holding, even as the real becomes surreal. The images catch the light as they turn together in unlikely yet nearly perfect partnership.

The journey taken here is harrowing, perilous, darkly graceful, and bears truths beyond boundaries. I would follow these designs on the world, these honed knives, these desperate memories anywhere. The journey ends with ‘Tonight in D minor,‘ and I raise my head from these poems with Mystery ringing in my ears. These phrases occur to me: dazzlingly original, deft and wildly successful gamble. Let’s just say that Disquiet is a truly remarkable gathering by a very gifted new poet.”

Betty Adcock

ISBN 978-0-936481-06-7