The award-winning poet Michael Collier's elegiac fifth collection is haunted by spectral figures and a strange, vivid chorus of birds: From a cardinal that crashes into a window to a gathering of turkey vultures, Collier engages birds as myth-makers and lively messengers, carrying memories from lost friends. The mystery of death and the vital absence it creates are the real subjects of the book. Collier juxtaposes moments of quotidian revelation, like waking to the laughing sounds of bird ...

A new collection of poetry by the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, which celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2000. "Dark splendor" are the words Edward Hirsch uses to describe the poems of the award-winning author Michael Collier. Collier's new work balances on the ledge between the everyday and the unknown, revealing the hidden depths of relationships. The poems in THE LEDGE are narrative and colloquial, musical and crystalline, at once intimate and sharp-edged. The...

“Profound, emotional, sparing, loving, and sometimes very funny. . . . [Collier is] always the consummate craftsman.”—Poet LoreAn Individual History describes the fears, anger, and guilt—personal, familial, societal, political, and historical—that comprise a life. The figure of the speaker’s maternal grandmother who was institutionalized for five decades serves as an overriding metaphor for this haunting, bold new work by an essential American poe...

Think of a time when you’ve feigned courage to make a friend, feigned forgiveness to keep one, or feigned indifference to simply stay out of it. What does it mean for our intimacies to fail us when we need them most?The poems of this collection explore such everyday dualities—how the human need for attachment is as much a source of pain as of vitality and how our longing for transcendence often leads to sinister complicities. The title poem tells the conflicted and devastating stor...

A collection of poetry spanning the career of distinguished poet Michael Collier.Whether Michael Collier is writing about an airline disaster, a friendship with a disgraced Catholic bishop, his father’s encounter with Charles Lindbergh, Lebanese beekeepers, a mother’s sewing machine, or a piano in the woods, he does so with the syntactic verve, scrupulously observed detail, and a flawless ear that has made him one of America’s most distinguished poets. These poems ...

Since issuing its first volumes in 1959, the Wesleyan poetry program has challenged the reigning aesthetic of the time and profoundly influenced the development of American poetry. One of the country's oldest programs, its greatest achievement has been the publication of early works by yet undiscovered poetry who have since become major awarded Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes, National Book Awards, and many other honors. At a time when other programs are being phased out, Wesleyan takes this...

Believe. Dream. Do.I Can Do All Things is an inspiring children's book that reminds young readers they can achieve anything with faith, courage, and determination. Written by Michael A. Collier, this beautifully illustrated story helps children discover confidence through faith and understand that their true strength comes from within - and from God.Perfect for bedtime stories, classroom reading, or Sunday school lessons, each page combines encouraging words with vibrant il...

The Greek Tragedy in New Translations series is based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves, or who work in collaboration with poets, can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of the great Greek writers. These new translations are more than faithful to the original text, going beyond the literal meaning in order to evoke the poetic intensity and rich metaphorical texture of the Greek language. Euripides was one of the most popular a...

The Greek Tragedy in New Translations series is based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves, or who work in collaboration with poets, can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of the great Greek writers. These new translations are more than faithful to the original text, going beyond the literal meaning in order to evoke the poetic intensity and rich metaphorical texture of the Greek language. Euripides was one of the most popular a...

**One of the California Review of Books' Best Poetry Books of 2025The definitive collection of one of the most celebrated poets of his generation and a master of the lyric poem in its richest, most flexible registers.**Stanley Plumly is one of the most emotionally complex, sustaining, and influential American poets of the last fifty years. Born in 1939, Plumly wrote poems that explored the deep interiors of the human heart and mind against a wide backdrop of cultur...

Against standard approaches to evolution and ethics, this book develops the idea that moral values may find their origin in regularly recurring features in the cooperative environments of species of organisms that are social and intelligent.Across a wide range of species that are social and intelligent, possibilities arise for helping others, responding empathetically to the needs of others, and playing fairly. The book identifies these underlying environmental regularities as biol...

This is the thrilling story of Robert Smalls and the Confederate ship that he used to liberate himself, his family, and over a dozen others from enslavement.On the night of May 13th, 1862, as the Civil War raged on in the United States, 16 enslaved people decided they would reach freedom or die trying. Filled to the brim with suspense, this true story details how Robert Smalls commandeered a confederate ship through the Charleston harbor toward liberation at the Un...