Caw - Paperback

by Michael Waters (Author)

In passionate poems about sin, obsession, and mortality--an artist's infatuation with a doll, an interspecies relationship, an ex-lover whose presence lingers in recipes, ecclesiastical birds, and a sex toy holding a loved one's ashes--Waters delivers impeccably crafted narratives infused with his signature lyrical gestures. At the book's core is a sequence of twenty-five poems on aging, dementia, and caregiving, chiseled phrase by phrase toward unflinching and memorable closure. Caw is a brilliant, intimate and moving addition to Waters's body of work and may be his most powerful collection yet.

Author Biography

Michael Waters is the author of twelve previous books of poems & editor/co-editor of six anthologies, including Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). His recent books include The Dean of Discipline (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018) Celestial Joyride (BOA Editions, 2016) & the anthologies Border Lines (Knopf, 2020) & Reel Verse (Knopf, 2019). His book Darling Vulgarity (BOA, 2006) was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize & Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA, 2006) was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, Paris Review, Yale Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Rolling Stone & American Poetry Review. He has taught at Ohio University, Salisbury University (MD), Bucknell University (PA), Monmouth University (NJ) & The University of Athens (Greece). Widely traveled, he has spent time in numerous countries, including Romania, Dominican Republic, Thailand, Iraq, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Tobago, Czech Republic, Nicaragua, Turkey & Belize. A 2017 Guggenheim Fellow & 2007 Fulbright Fellow, recipient of five Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts & NJ State Council on the Arts, & residency fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), St. James Cavaliere Centre (Malta) & Chateau de Lavigny (Switzerland), Waters lives without a cell phone in Ocean, NJ with poet & translator Mihaela Moscaliuc.