Description

Collected Poems by Michael Poage

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Blue Cedar Press (2017)
ISBN: 978-0-9960970-6-2

PRAISE FOR HUMAN INK:

“If you read these powerful (and powerfully clear) poems, you find a soul walking through the Valley of the Shadow, dealing with the human need for grace and hope in dark times…. These collected works hint at the treasures Mike is ready to share in the future.  At least five more books are in his secret archive, waiting to be unleashed.  In this clouded age, when the shadow grows deeper, I think the time for writing-as-resistance is here.  But also, writing as healing.  As hope.  It’s a pastor’s work–and the work of the poets we both love.

“Like so many writers of faith (and doubt), there is a plain strength in the quiet Mike exalts.  I see Rumi as much as the Psalmist.  I see Zen masters and Basho grinning in these poems like I do in Merton and Ignatius.  Battles, yes.  Life and death, yes.  No wonder he gets angry responses when he stands up to the power.
But I think he knows a secret: song goes on forever.”

—Luis Alberto Urrea, Chicago, 2017