"The philosophy and emotional pulse moving behind the words—that and the flawless lineation of the music— just wouldn’t let me go."
--Jamaal May, Hum (Alice James Books) American Library Association Notable Book Award.
Mother and Child with Flowers, Finishing Line Press 2013
"This powerful little collection—essentially a meditation on reckless self-destruction—is painful and wonderful. Painful in the bone-aching witness of a child for her mother’s long, slow, determined collapse. Wonderful in the miraculous language that Kelly Michels has summoned to record the tortured love of mother and daughter."
--John Balaban, winner of the William Carlos Williams prize, the National Poetry Series, and twice finalist for the National Book Award.
Disquiet, Jacar Press 2015
"Kelly Michels is a brave and haunting poet whose deeply personal work creates what Stevens called “a new knowledge of reality.” Hard-eyed and large-hearted, rooted in her own past, Mother and Child with Flowers is a beautiful, terrifying, redemptive collection--a Madonna tableau woven from barbed wire and jeweled with broken glass."
--Tim McBride, author of The Manageable Cold