A Drink at the Mirage

Michael J. Rosen

Jul 2014 · Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets Book 86 · Princeton University Press

About this ebook

"Between the discovery that there is a design which only his poetry enables him to find as he confronts the world and the discovery that such a design is a snare, merely a means of keeping him from further discernment, Michael Rosen is wedged, is productively pinioned, [ should say, for it is just this pressure--of meaning discerned on one hand and of meaning distrusted on the other--which makes the tension of these poems, a new version of the old wars between mind and body, memory and hope, self and surround. How tender and inclusive are Rosen's preoccupations, and how disabused his conclusions! One reads these playful, stricken poems with wonder--how will such ventures conclude, or even persist? What will happen next? Here is a poet who persuades us, as the saying goes, to stay tuned."--Richard Howard

Originally published in 1985.

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About the author

Michael J. Rosen was born on Septembr 20, 1954 in Ohio. After getting his MFA in poetry, Rosen started work as a design consultant for the Jefferson Center for Learning and the Arts in 1982. In 1983, he became the literary director of the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. During his near-twenty-year stay as literary director, Rosen was the editor for several compilations of James Thurber's writings; he also was involved in the creation of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Rosen has also "taught in the Ohio Art Council Poetry-in-the-Schools Program and Greater Columbus Arts Council Artist-in-the-Schools Program, and has conducted over 500 young authors' conferences, in-service days, writing workshops, guest author days, and residencies (for elementary, middle school, and high school students and teachers). He has acted as editor for Mirth of a Nation and 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells, and his poetry has been featured in The Best American Poetry 1995.