The Only Worlds We Know (Button Poetry)
The Only Worlds We Know is a nuanced and tactile look at both sobriety, and what comes after. Patient meditations on loss and the land where the people we love live and are also buried.
Praise for The Only Worlds We Know:
"Memory is shaped with a resolve that is without resolution in these moving marvelous poems. They beautifully track what happens when unspeakable grief refuses to be silent" - Terrance Hayes
“Michael Lee has found newly slanted and richly tinged ways to write about some of the crucial subjects—love and love lost, recovery and addiction, the bullet and the pill. His clean lines and nothing-to-hide voice will startle and edify his lucky readers." - Billy Collins
"These words will carry you. This is a striking debut collection—a voice that feels urgent, honest, and earned." - Matthew Olzmann
Michael Lee is a Norwegian-American writer, youth worker, and organizer. He has received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the LOFT Literary Center, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Winner of the Scotti Merrill Award for poetry from the Key West Literary Seminar, his poetry has appeared in Ninth Letter, Poetry Northwest, Copper Nickel, and Best New Poets 2018 among others. Michael has worked as a dishwasher, a farmhand, a teaching artist, a social studies teacher, and a case manager for youth experiencing homelessness. Author of The Only Worlds We Know (Button poetry), he works, lives, writes, organizes, and dreams in North Minneapolis.
Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the poetry collections