You can buy a collection of the more than 50 poems we published from 2010 to 2015 in our book, The Michigan Poet: Collected Poems.

The Michigan Poet: Collected Poems 2010–2015

Purchasing a copy helps fund our mission: to provide Michigan communities with quality poems by Michigan writers distributed throughout the state on posters.

Here’s what current Michigan poets say about this collection:

“At a time when poems come at us on the internet-fast and furious and often carrying the same weight-we might wonder if there are any regional connections left. But in this collection there’s a lot of snow, of deer, of water and sand. Then there are cars and roads and concrete. The combinations in our poems-of the wild and the post-industrial-mirror the troubled but fruitful contradictions of our state. These poems are the ways we understand ourselves.”

Keith Taylor, author of 15 collections of poetry, coordinator of the undergraduate program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, Bear River Writers’ Conference Director, and poetry editor for Michigan Quarterly Review.

“A poem is a bridge of language, a gate to the nation of another heart. If by the making and reading of poetry, we allow for the crossing and communion of such foreign, such familiar light-so we deepen, brighten, nourish, define and open: self, home, community, state and world. If you need such crossings, if you seek such pleasant peninsulas, look in these pages, in these poems.”

Robert Fanning award-winning poet, professor at Central Michigan University, and facilitator of the Wellspring Literary Series.

“There is a deep sense of place and personal history that resonates throughout this anthology. And even though the collection is titled The Michigan Poet, these poems have no borders: from a quiet memory of honey and lemons in Croatia to Detroit’s concrete blossoming into vegetables in a parking lot. Michigan has nurtured some remarkable poets and that community is represented here-diverse voices that reflect the essence of lakes, woods, dunes, rivers, trees, and the human heart. A distinct song that embraces the world.”

Linda Nemec Foster, author of nine poetry collections, first Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College.