
How We Move Toward Light
New & Selected Poems
Michael Magee(Author)
Moonpath Press
Published on 1. September 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
158 pages
978-1-936657-40-7 (ISBN)
Description
The mood and scope of the whole are sounded in Part I, The New Odysseus, a series of twenty linked poems,
where a somewhat weary new Odysseus invokes his legendary adventures and various gods as he wanders
both in the Tacoma present and yet in other lands and times, with an eye on our absurd world of the coffee
house, sex change, the mall, pogo sticks, an anomalous game of cricket, poverty, yearning, old age, mortality,
a quiet, bleak fading. It is a phantasmagorical trip, told with a kind of rueful even solemn whimsy which
is his own.
The following two sections reflect Magee’s personal odyssey. They give us back the varied worlds he has
inhabited, their landscapes and meanings, through the vision of artists and poets whose personae Magee
explores and at times adopts. It is a strange world, steeped in art, populated by the active ghosts of Proust,
Whitman, Roethke, Chagall, O’Keeffe, Yeats, Cather and others, as well as by spirits like Rapunzel. But then a
homeless man speaks as he wakes in his cold blankets near Seattle docks. Or we pause in front of a Dali
painting to consider time itself. It is quite a trip.
The book is dedicated to Jean Musser, the poet’s late wife and fellow poet. She also appears movingly in a
few of the poems. Her presence is felt throughout.
—Ben Drake
More details
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Weight
240 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-936657-40-7 (9781936657407)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Crowed is Michael Magee's fifth collection of poetry and a Sally Albiso Prize finalist. In this collection he goes back to his Celtic roots, family, and friends and pays homage to those he's learned from. His most recent third third and fourth collections were Shiny Things and Budapest After Dark, published in 2025. His plays and poetry have been produced here and in England and Greece. New work appears in Open Book: Western Washington Poets Network Anthology and Cirque. He conducts writing workshops and appears on KTAH FM RadioTacoma, VerseDaily.Org, and The Writer's Almanac. Michael's poems reflect his interest in nature, theatre, music, literature, and travel. His mentors and friends have been David Wagoner, Ben Drake, and William Matchett, professors emeriti at the University of Washington. His musical influences include: Franz Liszt, Chopin, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Marianne Faithfull, and Townes Van Zandt. He has lived in England and traveled in Ireland as well as Hungary, Morocco, and Turkey. He is recipient of a Jack Straw Residency and lives in Tacoma, Washington.