Overview

FINALIST, 2023 FOREWORD INDIES AWARD FINALIST, 2023 SHEILA MARGARET MOTTON BOOK PRIZE With the rise of anti-Semitism, extremism, political polarization, mass shootings, the fraying of Black-Jewish-Asian alliances, and the loss of personal connections during the age of Covid, where is God, and how can we find the joy and wonder in our lives? How do we come to terms with loss? How can art and language help us to cope with life and honor the dead? How does one act responsibly in a world that is at once beautiful and full of suffering-balanced precariously on the edge of despair and ruin? With humor, anger, and tenderness, Richard Michelson's poems explore the boundaries between the personal and the political-and the deep connections between history and memory. Growing up under the shadow of the Holocaust, in a Brooklyn neighborhood consumed by racial strife, Michelson's experiences were far from ordinary, yet they remain too much a part of the greater circle of poverty and violence to be dismissed as merely private concerns. In these poems, Michelson pays tribute to his father, a victim of gun violence, and honors his mother's surrender to dementia. Still, it is Michelson's sense of humor and acute awareness of Jewish history, with its ancient emphasis on the fundamental worth of human existence, that makes this accessible book, finally, celebratory and life-affirming.

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9781639821358

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"A high-spirited romp with language and a tough spiritual struggle with suffering. Finishing this book, I turned right around and started over-it was that rich, that good. -Alicia Ostriker, author of Waiting for the Light and The Volcano and After Sleeping as Fast as I Can is a book where prayers are filled with history, and history is filled with the urgency of the present; a book that isn't afraid of tragedy because it holds music as a shield. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa With clarity and wit Michelson touches deep into pain. But then come the words of blessing in the midst of the dark that understands ""Light is our only future."" -Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022 Sleeping as Fast as I Can brings prayers, rants, memoria, and rage against hatred, violence, racism, and anti-Semitism in a bitches brew of language on every page. This is a powerful collection deserving a wide and diverse readership. -Patricia Spears Jones, author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems"

A high-spirited romp with language and a tough spiritual struggle with suffering. Finishing this book, I turned right around and started over-it was that rich, that good. -Alicia Ostriker, author of Waiting for the Light and The Volcano and After Sleeping as Fast as I Can is a book where prayers are filled with history, and history is filled with the urgency of the present; a book that isn't afraid of tragedy because it holds music as a shield. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing in Odessa With clarity and wit Michelson touches deep into pain. But then come the words of blessing in the midst of the dark that understands Light is our only future. -Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022 Sleeping as Fast as I Can brings prayers, rants, memoria, and rage against hatred, violence, racism, and anti-Semitism in a bitches brew of language on every page. This is a powerful collection deserving a wide and diverse readership. -Patricia Spears Jones, author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems

Author Information

Richard Michelson's poetry collections include More Money than God, Battles and Lullabies, and Tap Dancing for the Relatives. He wrote the libretto for the off-Broadway musical theater piece Dear Edvard, and his children's books have been on the top ten lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The New Yorker. Michelson has received a National Jewish Book Award and two Sydney Taylor Gold Medals from the Association of Jewish Libraries. A native of East New York, Brooklyn, Michelson has served as Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, where he hosts a poetry radio program and owns R. Michelson Galleries.

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