Overview

In this heartfelt, heartbreaking collection, Michael Hettich reaches into the wilds to find some measure of the eternal that might wedge itself between himself and the unthinkable: the death of his beloved. He calls upon memory as if to rewind their lives together and forestall the inevitable. He immerses himself in the forces that might provide some solace, might somehow outlast the darkness, the silence. In language as vivid as the pulsing life around him-the swollen creeks, the mountains; sky, stars, and wind; birds and bears-he contains those elements and lets them speak. -Marie Harris, Desire Lines

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9781947896826

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Reviews

The poems in Michael Hettich's new collection, A Sharper Silence, prompt a reader to move deeper inside the self as the life of the poems, the poet's life, the natural world-the world of other creatures-all speak to each other and to the reader's own life and sensibilities: as the spring wind slips inside our silence, this dream we find ourselves dreaming together, as though we've discovered a new world after all. This is what poems do when they are done well-they offer us glimpses into our selves via the poet's selves. -Elizabeth Jacobson, There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of CoralThe most remarkable poem I've read in a long time is ""The Secret,"" the prefatory poem in A Sharper Silence. What makes it-and all the poems that follow it-so memorable is Michael Hettich's seamless blending of narrative energy and lyrical beauty; of contemporary settings and archetypal imagery; and of external and internal realities as when, in ""A Blue Afternoon,"" the world was ""singing to itself as it moved / inside and outside my body.""Please, read this entire, deeply beautiful and profound collection. -Eric Nelson, Horse Not Zebra

Author Information

Michael Hettich has published more than a dozen books of poetry, most recently The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022 which won the 2024 Brockman-Campbell Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. His other honors include several Individual Artist Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, The Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, the David Martinson / Meadowhawk Prize, a Florida Book Award, the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from Slant magazine at the University of Central Arkansas. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He holds a Ph.D. in literature and taught for many years at Miami Dade College. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

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