Book Details

by Andrew Periale, Poet Laureate, Rochester, NH

John-Michael Albert's poetry is vivid--whether set on a Turkish beach, graveside in Ireland, or at the kitchen table in his own Dover, NH--but it's the kind of vivid you see with your heart, not your commonplace eyes. These poems are like diary entries of one who has seen much, suffered much, and shared his life with a memorable collection of waitresses, bullies, lovers, losers, stray cats and songbirds: the eccentric pantheon of his own personal mythology. A grand book to curl up with.

by Annie Farnsworth, editor, Sheltering Pines Press

To do it any justice, I would write of this book in the form of a poem, as that is the magic that John-Michael Albert effects through his work--to lend us use of his poetic lens. Under his watchful eye and with his loving words, the world shimmers--all of it--the deer dragged under the bus, the miracle of ruby strawberries in a bread pudding, a junker that still runs despite every law of physics. Albert's magic is to see, to be present, to love...the world in all its flawed marvelousness, and his poems teach us, in their quiet but insistent way, to do the same.