William Michaelian: The Addison Street Poetry Walk

A while back, I mentioned The Wall Poems of Leiden, an outdoor poetry project in the Netherlands. A similar project is the Addison Street Poetry Walk, located in downtown Berkeley, California. A 296-page companion volume featuring the commentary of former Poet Laureate Robert Hass was also released by Heyday Books in 2004.

Simplicity, Sincerity, Sonority: A New Voice in American Poetry

The following excerpt is from an excellent review of William Michaelian's two books of poetry, Winter Poems and Another Song I Know, posted recently online. The review is by Russ Allison Loar, a journalist, writer, and poet who lives in Claremont, California. The complete review is available at Amazon.com and on the Powell's Books website.

We are not living in an age of poetry, sad but true. The greatest lines of our most famous poets no longer enter our everyday vernacular. Shakespeare and Robert Frost, among others, still remain in our vocabulary, but the age of technology and the omnipresence of mass corporate culture has replaced the role of the poet in our society.

When one discovers an original poetic voice, a voice that actually matters, it is reason to take notice, to take out the iPod earbuds and try once again to read a book of poetry and enjoy it. This time, you will not be overwhelmed by obscurity, nauseated by pretentiousness and bored by irrelevance.

William Michaelian is a poet that matters, and most of all, he is a poet who communicates what matters, those small parts of everyday life that are the finest moments of our lives — moments of observation, insight and awakening.