Bassett, Michael 2011
Grackles, scatter like pieces
of a story. Sweethearts
of ash and butter, finger
squint-star light, draw
a spine down the highway.
– Michael Bassett, “Directives”
Read this interview with Michael Bassett from Greenwood Writer’s Guild:
Featured Author: Michael Bassett
Which writers inspire you? My literary influences are a crazy broth of very disparate authors. The poets I most admire are Albert Goldbarth, Angela Ball, Roger Weingarten, John Lane Michael Chitwood, Susn Ludvigson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Beckian Fritz Golberg, and Charles Harper Webb. I guess the poet whose work I go back to most that…
He can’t stop thinking about apricots
shriveling, paint belching, tiny frogs
dripping above matches. Outside
his secret fort, yellowing
sycamore leaves crackle.
– Michael Bassett, “The Blackboard of His Eyelid”
Watch Michael Bassett read some of his work: