Michael Kriesel

photo by Rob Rorcutt

CONTACT

mkriesel@wausau.k12.wi.us

H16550 Hwy 52
Aniwa WI 54408-9618
715-446-3645

Michael Kriesel
Aniwa, Wisconsin

BIO

Michael Kriesel, 47, is a widely-published poet and reviewer living in the countryside near Wausau. He's written reviews for Small Press Review, and Library Journal. His poems have appeared in over 200 journals including North American Review, The Progressive, and Nimrod.

Winner of the 2009 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Muse Prize, the Council for Wisconsin Writers 2003 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Prize and recipient of an Honorable Mention from the North American Review's 2008 Hearst Competition, Michael is the Conference Coordinator for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. He also served on the Poet Laureate Commission from 2006-2008, and is a lifelong Wisconsin resident except for ten years in the Navy as a TV journalist and newspaper editor.

PUBLICATIONS

The Light of Fields (mini-chapbook of reprints from his second chapbook of 1982), Alternating Current Press, 2009 - $3.00 alt-current.com/
Moths Mail the House (chapbook ) , sunnyoutside.com/releases/035/o.html 2008 - $10.00 includes shipping
Whale of Stars (letterpress haiku), sunnyoutside.com 2009 - $12.00 includes shipping
Soul Noir (23 pages of prose & justified poems) Platonic 3Way Press, 2008 - $5.00
Feeding My Heart to the Wind (Selected Short Poems 1999-2005),sunnyoutside.com 2006 - $7.00 includes shipping
Chasing Saturday Night, Poems About Rural Wisconsin, Marsh River Editions, 2005 - $10.00 + 1.25 shipping & handling

BOOKINGS

2009

October
Featured reader October 3rd at 7:00 PM at the Fort Atkinson Library as part of the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Festival in Fort Atkinson, and on October 15th with Nate Graziano and Sunnyoutside Publisher David McNamara at Avols Bookstore in Madison

November
Featured reader November 3rd at 7:00 PM at Carroll University in Waukesha and on November 15th at 10:30 AM, giving a presentation on his poetic Threesome Form at the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Fall Conference at the Ramada Hotel in Stevens Point

POEM

ZEN AMEN

Zen. Zero. Zilch awaits all afterlives.
Yet somehow we can’t imagine nothing.
X marks the spot. X must equal something.
Whether math or death, Nothing must be named.
Vending machine? Why not? Let X be death’s
Ultramundane, unknowable chrome-legged
Toy dispenser. Souls sucked in, toy coffins
Spit out—unless that soul is on a string.
Remember Lazarus, recalled by Christ.
Qabalistic texts agree how he was
Pulled back from death like a coin on a string.
Oh, Jesus knew the secret would be safe—
No one who ever comes back recalls much,
Mostly since there’s nothing to remember.
Laugh if you want, it’s good for the soul—though
Killed, hope resurrects like dandelions.
Jesus knew all this. Still, he was right. We’re
Immortal, since mind can’t survive its end.
How do I know all this? Easy. I died.
God wasn’t there and neither was I that
First time in Madison, Wisconsin.
Evening. I was leaning against a
Dull red brick wall, chanting. And then I was
Chanting, leaning against a red brick wall.
But there was a gap, and in my hand was
A toy coffin. Can I get an Amen?

Published in Free Verse and North American Review, finalist in 2007 Hearst Competition

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