A stunning collection spanning more than 20 years, Flock &amp; Shadow traces the journey of a man—son, husband, father, poet—as he struggles to find meaning and comfort in a harsh universe. In well-crafted poems, Hettich questions, challenges, and examines the trials and triumphs of life. Hettich’s poems have the uncanny ability to sympathize with nature, to listen and shape it in ways that simultaneously surprise and delight. While vivid images of flora and fauna inform this collection, the complexities of each poem evoke intrigue, doubt, and clarity, keeping any lasting or certain epiphanies dangling. Solace and wonder fill these poems. Flock &amp; Shadow is a human song against the din and darkness of the modern world.

Flock & Shadow: New and Selected Poems

Literature & Fiction

Hettich, Michael

Poetry

New Rivers Press

My father dives in and swims off across the bay, tries to swim all the way to the other side, swims past slag islands of mucky-drift and mangrove crowded with birds that don't notice him. If he makes it to the other shore he will walk home, barefoot and dripping . . . 
Using natural imagery and the disjunctive ease of jazz, Michael Hettich imagines a way through isolation, longing, and the haunting unexplained loss of his father.
Michael Hettich has published six books of poetry, including the prize-winning Flock and Shadow: New and Selected Poems (New Rivers Press, 2005), Swimmer Dreams (Turning Point, 2004), Behind our Memories (Adastra, 2004), and The Point of Touching (John Le Bow, 2003). Hettich teaches English and creative writing at Miami Dade College.

The Animals Beyond Us (American Poetry Series)

Behind Our Memories, Poems by Michael Hettich

Adastra Press

In Bluer and More Vast, Michael Hettich writes, "Scientists had discovered a way to ascertain whyeach of us was born, by pricking us slightly through the moons of our thumbs . . ." Elsewhere the poet invents the remarkable notion that "Inside our bodies, in secret places, there are large-shouldered animals moving slowly through the tall grass . . ." Throughout this stunning collection of prose poems, life's mysteries are magnified by the poet's vast imagination. Each poem's magical conceit and earthy embrace reminds us of our place in the universe and the universe's place within each of us. -- Mia Leonin

Bluer and More Vast

Hysterical Books

Stationary Wind: New and Collected Poems

March Street Pr

"Michael Hettich's poems resemble half-remembered fables or lyrical dreams, animistic dramas played out in moonlit meadows, domestic interiors that shimmer like velvet jewelry boxes. Wisdom and enchantment are calling cards ..."--Campbell McGrath, on Like Happiness

The Mica Mine

Literary

St. Andrews Press

Michael Hettich is one of our best and most necessary poets because his dreamlike stories remind us how little we truly see and how often we sleep through the day’s deep revelations. This collection—so tightly choreographed and flawlessly written—is like a long poem that shines brighter with each turn of the page. By book’s end, one is desirous to know more clearly those mysteries of the inner vision, and to bring a keener awareness to the fraught and fragile natural world that is ours to inhabit, nourish, and preserve. To Start an Orchard is a call to arms, demanding consciousness, responsibility, and love. —Richard Jones

To Start an Orchard

Press 53

The Halo of Bees is comprised of new poems by Michael Hettich plus selections from his twelve collections published from 1990 to 2022. Hettich has been called "an earthy fabulist" (Susan Kelly-DeWitt), "a master of the simile" (Denise Duhamel), and "one of our best and most necessary poets" (Richard Jones); his poetry "tender, endlessly inventive" (Chase Twitchell), "stunningly intuitive and elemental" (Richard Blanco), and "half-remembered fables or lyrical dreams" (Campbell McGrath).

The Halo of Bees: New & Selected Poems, 1990-2022

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