With the poem posted below this announcement, Michael H. Brownstein joins our staff and launches a column we call “All Over the Place” because his poetry seems to range the world, speaking at many levels of human experience.
We are grateful to Bob Boldt for recommending us to Michael, and to Michael for acting on Bob’s recommendation and sending us some of his poems, which have appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, After Hours, Poetry Super Highway, and others. He has nine poetry chapbooks, including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (The Camel Saloon, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). His book, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet’s Journey To The Borderlands Of Dementia, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018.
Michael’s first offering, “The night of the freight train,” was occasioned by his huddling through the F3 or F4 tornado that struck Jefferson City, Missouri, Wednesday night/Thursday morning, knocking out the electricity and making a mess of the town. Jefferson City sits on the Missouri River, which quickly crested the levee in its rise above flood stage. “What used to be a fifteen minute ride for supplies,” emailed Michael, “is now over an hour with all the roads under water in and out of town.” [See also “Tornado Recovery and Flooding Fears: Updates on Missouri and Oklahoma Storms” in yesterday’s New York Times.]
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Michael, what a gorgeous and yet terrifying poem. Thank you for joining us at Moristotle. I look forward to reading more of your work.
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