The Early Minutes of Without: New & Selected Poems

📖 The Scoop

Poet Michael Klein's New & Selected work!

Tour the brilliant, wild, and careful career of poet Michael Klein, from a generous serving of new work all the way back to his 1993 debut, titled 1990. The HIV crisis, the ecstasy of our bonds with both the human and the animal worlds, the exquisite complications of longing, love songs to New York and to Provincetown--the varied, rich textures and electrifying honesty of his work bring rare gratification to his readers.

"There is no other Michael Klein. There is no other writer adept, in Michael Klein's particular way, with the all-but-incomprehensible intertwining of absurdity, sorrow, humor, mystery, and mortality that is the world as we know it. He's a living treasure."--Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

"Klein's words lifted me out of myself and set me down in a place that is at once lighter and deeper, broken-hearted and healed, laughing and crying. THE EARLY MINUTES OF WITHOUT is a keening of a long song to living. And I am here for every single word of it. Beautiful."--Jacqueline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming

"Michael Klein's wildly vulnerable and ecstatic poetry has long been a part of both my reading and writing life. Part of my soul-life! Whenever I need truth, whenever I need to be talked down from the ledge, I have turned to Klein's poetry. I'm constantly surprised at how straight-forward and beautiful his poems are when I know they often come from a world that can feel ugly, untruthful, and not so straight-forward. Klein's poems will not lie to you, will not promise a world that does not exist, but they will stand with you, they will walk alongside you, and your life will be better for it."--Matthew Dickman, author of Husbandry

"'I'm certain I've seen the face of God on more than one occasion,' Michael Klein announces. Horses, Adrienne Rich, a dog named Ruby, a partner named Andrew, New York City, movies, Celia Cruz, drinking, not drinking, friends for days--his poems fill with love. Dream language and dream logic surround these celebrations. Dreams, those prayers of the unconscious. Like Jean Valentine, Klein takes dictation from the unconscious which leads to lavish sublimity. 'The writing runs on less self and more world,' Klein reminds us. When art has altruism in its bones it rocks the soul. Talented Klein. Sole. More world, more soul. More and more. His unique deep voice expands the canon with fiat and spirit and that rare gift of seeing God on more than one occasion: joy."--Spencer Reece, author of The Secret Gospel of Mark

Poetry. Hybrid. Family & Relationships. LGBTQ+ Studies.

Genre: Poetry / American / General (fancy, right?)