"Michael Meyerhofer is the master of the twist, the patron saint of lines embodying equal parts comedy and poignancy." 

-Mary Biddinger, author of Prairie Fever


"Sometimes, Michael Meyerhofer’s poems are excruciatingly tender, the next moment (or poem) blistering satire, the next walk-into-a-wall funny. The one thing that’s predictable about his poems is that they are unpredictable. I think it’s almost time for the poets of my generation to start picking out chairs on the rest home porch. There’s a whole new generation coming up, and they mean business, and Meyerhofer is one of them. I will read every word he writes until I can read no more."

-Thomas Lux, author of The Cradle Place

 

"This is knock-you-in-the-teeth poetry that those major publishers would be afraid to touch because it cuts through the vanity bulls*** and popularity contest material we're being told is good writing. Plus, Michael Meyerhofer doesn't have a schtick. Just damn good poems. Open this book to any page and you will laugh out loud or feel a twinge of perturbation. Open it again and you will be pulled deeper into the muck and gunk of real life and feel the 'primordial / rush of ocean' and learn a thing or two, such as, well, what to do if you're buried alive."

 

-Norman Minnick, author of Folly

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"Inquisitive and insightful, the poems of Michael Meyerhofer aren't afraid to go to those weird places other poets fear or dismiss. There's equal parts humor and pathos in this poet, and he brings us poems that regard the world with a certain lyric skepticism that, nonetheless, wants to believe in all those old-fashioned ancient truths--beauty, harmony, peace."

 

-Allison Joseph, author of My Father's Kites

 

"…Meyerhofer is always the poet who sees what we don’t want to see precisely when we least want to see it. If there is a thing to be said that decorum would rather skirt, he is going to say it, and yet, curiously, he is not a poet you have to be up to. He comes upon you like weather."

-Djelloul Marbrook, author of Far From Algiers 

 

“While never flinching from confronting the irredeemable damage we do to one another, these urgent and necessary poems remind us 'that if you focus on what hurts, / face it wholly, it dissolves / like a light from a burnt-out bult, / a curtain gone up in flames.”

 

–Jon Tribble, author of Natural State

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“The sheer range of subjects and references at Meyerhofer's command makes every poem in the book a neat surprise. Ancient pottery in one poem, keyboard shortcuts in another. The size of whale brains in one stanza, The Kingston Trio in another. The ancient Egyptians in one line, Pedialyte in the next. But his movements are so natural, so perfect that you barely notice them. Then you backtrack, reread, and you're amazed how far you actually travel in a Meyerhofer poem. Yet, every poem is grounded in real human emotion at the same time.”

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–Justin Hamm, author of Lessons in Ruin

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"Michael Meyerhofer's poems reside mainly in narrative. But even though they typically begin and operate in story, they often end with an interesting lyric curl, and it is these endings that make me want to go back and reconsider their lineages."

-CJ Sage, author of Odyssea
 

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"There’s real voice: an all-too-rare accomplishment in these days of gentrified poetry. The language here is consistently fresh—a volatile mix of humor and anger, spot-on pity and forgiveness—that gives the ear meaningful work to do."

-Craig Challender, author of Dancing on Water 

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"Meyerhofer is going about the business of taking everyday observations and connecting them to the rest of the world with such confidence it is simply astonishing."

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-Justin Evans, author of Sailing This Nameless Ship

 

"Meyerhofer continues with his superb writing... Every twist, every meeting has implications of something bigger and greater to come. That's what kept the book entertaining and had me reading vigorously until the end." 

-Big Al's Books & Pals