Full Description
Whether Michael Collier is writing about an airline disaster, a friendship with a disgraced Catholic bishop, his father's encounter with Charles Lindbergh, Lebanese beekeepers, a mother's sewing machine, or a piano in the woods, he does so with the syntactic verve, scrupulously observed detail, and flawless ear that has made him one of America's most distinguished poets. These poems cross expanses, connecting the fear of missing love and the bliss of holding it, the ways we speak to ourselves and language we use with others, and deep personal grief and shadows of world history.
The Missing Mountain brings together a lifetime of work, chronicling Collier's long and distinguished career as a poet and teacher. These selections, both of previously published and new poems, chart the development of Collier's art and the cultivations of is passions and concerns.
Contents
Acknowledgments
from My Bishop and Other Poems (2018)
Meadow
My Bishop
Anecdote of the Piano in the Woods
Bronze Foot in a Glass Case
The Storm
Boom Boom
A Wild Tom Turkey
Len Bias, a Bouquet of Roses, and Ms. Brooks
Last Morning with Steve Orlen
from An Individual History (2012)
An Individual History
My Mother of Invention
Grandmother with Mink Stole, Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, 1959
Cyclops
At the End of a Ninetieth Summer
Brendan's Hair
Piety
Doctor Friendly
History
Rabid Head
The Bees of Deir Kifa
Embrace
Laelaps
Six Lines for Louise Bogan
from Dark Wild Realm (2006)
Birds Appearing in a Dream
Confessional
Summer Anniversary
Bird Crashing into Window
The Watch
The Missing Mountain
Singing, 5 A.M.
Mine Own John Clare
Elegy for a Long-Dead Friend
A Line from Robert Desnos Used to Commemorate George "Sonny" Took-the-Shield, Fort Belknap, Montana
Bardo
from The Ledge (2000)
Argos
My Crucifixion
The Word
The Farrier
Ghazal
All Souls
Brave Sparrow
Pay-Per-View
Cerberus
Pax Geologica
from The Neighbor (1995)
Archimedes
2212 West Flower Street
The House of Being
The Barber
The Rancher
Mission Boulevard
The Steam Engine
Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors
Letter from Mrs. C. G. Vogt
The Water Dream
from The Folded Heart (1989)
North Corridor
Spider Tumor
Burial
The Problem
The Heavy Light of Shifting Stars
Feedback
The Cave
from The Clasp (1986)
Aquarium
White Strawberries
In Khabarovsk
Bruges
Two Girls in a Chair
The Clasp
New Poems (2021)
A Man of Rueful Countenance
A True Story about a Cat and a Possum
Bee to Keeper
Portrait of Two Young Couples
Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
The Salvation of America
Goat on a Pile of Scrap Lumber
Cyclist Braking for Two Foxes Crossing a Country Road in Early Morning
Morning Crows in a Fresh Mown Field before Rain
His Highness's Dog at Kew
Penn Relays
Winter
Our Felix Randal
In Life
Bluebirds
Poem for a Sixtieth Birthday
Today I Can Write
To the Muse of Dying
Tree beyond Your Window
Notes
