Gospel Night

"Waters's elegant language suggests that there is grace to be found in facing and speaking of our sorrows. . . . His use of humor creates a tension between the profane and the sublime."—Arts & Letters

Among the survivors of the Donner
Party—idiom's black sense of humor—
Who developed a secret taste for flesh
Flaked between the fluted bones of the wrist?

In his tenth poetry collection, Michael Waters tackles the dual (and dueling) natures of our humanity: sin and transgression, isolation and atrocity, love and darkness, and the desire for a language that can illuminate such ordinary yet disturbing spaces.

Michael Waters: Michael Waters teaches at Monmouth University and in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation. He is Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University in Maryland. His eight books of poems include Darling Vulgarity (2006?finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize), Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (2001?finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize), Green Ash, Red Maple, Black Gum (1997)?these titles from BOA Editions?Bountiful (1992), The Burden Lifters (1989), and Anniversary of the Air (1985)?these titles from Carnegie Mellon UP. He has also edited and co-edited several volumes, including Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) and Perfect in the Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali (Southern Illinois UP, 2003). The recipient of a fellowship in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council, and four Pushcart Prizes, he has been Visiting Professor of American Literature at the University of Athens, Greece, Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, Stadler Poet-in-Residence at Bucknell University, Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at Wichita State University, Core Faculty member in the New England College MFA Program, and Fulbright Scholar in American Studies at Al. I Cuza University in Iasi, Romania. He lives in Ocean, New Jersey with his wife, Mihaela Moscaliuc, and their son, Fabian.