Michael Mark

« Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner »

Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet is a kind of family photo album for the final years of a life. As dementia progresses in Michael’s mother, each poem is at once a snapshot, a foreshadowing and a memory. And like memories, each is revealing, accurate, and blurry.

 

Sample Poems

• Two poems in The Sun
• “Visiting Her in Queens …” in The Sun
• “A Daily Practice” in Rattle (online)
• “My Mother’s Freezer” in Rattle (online)

 

Reviews of Visiting Her in Queens …

A beautiful story told in poems. My heart breaks at the subject, but the poet’s language renders the sadness into beauty. This is just a gorgeous volume.
—Amanda Hard, in Goodreads

Tender, heartbreaking. These poems illustrate the emotions of an adult son observing the decline of his parents as they gradually age, with a particular focus on his mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s. Needless to say, this chapbook spoke volumes and it is no surprise it received the Rattle Chapbook Prize for 2022.
—Michael Boccardo, in Goodreads

Michael Mark has a special way of capturing the commonplace, the mundane, and making it poetic in a unique, quirky and relatable manner.
—Eileen Wingard, in San Diego Jewish World

 

About the Author

Michael Mark has walked the Himalayas, Wales, Portugal, and Spain with his two children. He’s the author of two collections of stories, Toba and Toba at the Hands of a Thief (Atheneum). He follows his wife, Lois, a travel writer, around the world but can always be found in Queens in his head. (web)

 

 

Details

Cover art by Lois and Michael Mark
ISBN: 978-1-931307-51-2
Cover price: $6.00
Chapbook: 40 pages
Size: 6″ x 9″