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From an American laundress reprimanding Degas, from a child’s butter and sugar sandwiches, from the persona of the New England Smokestack speaking elegantly of her decommission, Colleen Michaels fashions an intelligent, compelling, and far-ranging
debut collection. At turns, surreal as well as wildly real, the poems in Prize Wheel are unflinchingly honest.
-Susan Rich, Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems
Sometimes if you’re lucky a book is so perfect, so true, so detailed and moving that you don’t want to put it down. The poems stay with you for a long time because they look at the world with such clear and loving eyes. Prize Wheel by Colleen Michaels is just such a book. I love it and I guarantee you will too.
-Maria Mazziotti Gillan, American Book Award winner
The poems in Michaels’ debut collection, Prize Wheel, are as thrilling and dangerous as a carnival. Fanned out into six sections, the book is as breathtaking and as specific as fate; the poems guide us through and out of a funhouse maze, one filled with creativity, costume, danger, and a mother’s love.
-Mom Egg Review
Small Bites Press
ISBN: 979-8-218-11138-0
PRIZE WHEEL
DEBUT COLLECTION NOW AVAILABLE
Poetry Publications
Eastern Iowa Review
Nixes Mate
Clinch
Molecule
Passages North
Barrelhouse
Mom Egg Review
Cider Press Review
Upcoming Events
2023
Saturday, January 21st - 6:30 pm, Chianti , 285 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA - Community Launch Party
Saturday, February 4th - 1:00 pm, The Poetry Center at PCCC, Paterson, NJ - Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award Reading
Thursday, February 16th - 7:00 pm, Gloucester Writers Center, 126 East Main Street - Montserrat Reading
Friday, February 17th - 7:00 pm, Readers and Writers Guild at Christ Church, 149 Asbury St. South Hamilton, MA - Reading
Wednesday, March 8th - 7:30 pm, Walnut Street Cafe, 157 Walnut Street, Lynn, MA - Speak Up Feature
Thursday, March 30th, Salem State Writers Series, - Reading with P Djeli Clark
Installation and Video Collaborations
Line Break (detail) - 2014
Poetry Installation with artist Lilllian Harden
Peabody Essex Museum, Mass Poetry Festival
Align (detail) 2008
Public Art Commission
Trustees of Reservations
Crane Beach, Ipswich, Massachusetts
Line Break (Detail) 2014
Poetry Installation with artist Lillian Harden
Peabody Essex Museum, Mass Poetry. Festival
Maggots and Milk, Short Film, 2016
Remix of my poem by filmmaker Adriane Little
Just Spring (detail) 2017
Community Writing Prompts with artist Stacy Thomas-Vickory
Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Peabody Essex Museum
The Improbable Places Poetry Tour
About the Author
Colleen Michaels was born in Waltham, Massachusetts and graduated from the University of Buffalo and the State University of New York - Fredonia. Her poetry has been published widely, anthologized, and made into public installations for the Trustees of Reservations and the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She serves on the board of trustees for the Beverly Public Library, is the creator of the Improbable Places Poetry Tour, and directs the Writing Studio at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, where she lives with her family. Prize Wheel is her first collection.
Photo Credit: Greg Cook
For inquiries regarding readings, workshops, permissions, etc., please contact me at colleenmichaelspoetry@gmail.com