Description:
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.
Brief description: 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.
Review Quotes:
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