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    The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems
    The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems
    The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems
    Ebook252 pages1 hour

    The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems

    By Michael Collier

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    About this ebook

    A collection of poetry spanning the career of distinguished poet Michael Collier.
     
    Whether Michael Collier is writing about an airline disaster, a friendship with a disgraced Catholic bishop, his father’s encounter with Charles Lindbergh, Lebanese beekeepers, a mother’s sewing machine, or a piano in the woods, he does so with the syntactic verve, scrupulously observed detail, and a flawless ear that has made him one of America’s most distinguished poets. These poems cross expanses, connecting the fear of missing love and the bliss of holding it, the ways we speak to ourselves and language we use with others, and deep personal grief and shadows of world history.

    The Missing Mountain brings together a lifetime of work, chronicling Collier’s long and distinguished career as a poet and teacher. These selections, both of previously published and new poems, chart the development of Collier’s art and the cultivations of his passions and concerns.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateAug 27, 2021
    ISBN9780226795393
    The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems

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      Book preview

      The Missing Mountain - Michael Collier

      Cover Page for The Missing Mountain

      The Missing Mountain

      The Missing Mountain

      New and Selected Poems

      Michael Collier

      The University of Chicago Press

      Chicago and London

      The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

      The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

      © 2021 by The University of Chicago

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.

      Published 2021

      Printed in the United States of America

      30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21    1 2 3 4 5

      ISBN-13: 978-0-226-79525-6 (paper)

      ISBN-13: 978-0-226-79539-3 (e-book)

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226795393.001.0001

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Collier, Michael, 1953- author.

      Title: The missing mountain : new and selected poems / Michael Collier.

      Other titles: Phoenix poets.

      Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. |

      Series: Phoenix poets | Includes bibliographical references.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2020051201 | ISBN 9780226795256 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226795393 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.

      Classification: LCC PS3553.O474645 M57 2021 | DDC 811/.54—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051201

      This paper meets the requirements oF ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

      for Katherine

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      from My Bishop and Other Poems (2018)

      Meadow

      My Bishop

      Anecdote of the Piano in the Woods

      Bronze Foot in a Glass Case

      The Storm

      Boom Boom

      A Wild Tom Turkey

      Len Bias, a Bouquet of Roses, and Ms. Brooks

      Last Morning with Steve Orlen

      from An Individual History (2012)

      An Individual History

      My Mother of Invention

      Grandmother with Mink Stole, Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, 1959

      Cyclops

      At the End of a Ninetieth Summer

      Brendan’s Hair

      Piety

      Doctor Friendly

      History

      Rabid Head

      The Bees of Deir Kifa

      Embrace

      Laelaps

      Six Lines for Louise Bogan

      from Dark Wild Realm (2006)

      Birds Appearing in a Dream

      Confessional

      Summer Anniversary

      Bird Crashing into Window

      The Watch

      The Missing Mountain

      Singing, 5 A.M.

      Mine Own John Clare

      Elegy for a Long-Dead Friend

      A Line from Robert Desnos Used to Commemorate George Sonny Took-the-Shield, Fort Belknap, Montana

      Bardo

      from The Ledge (2000)

      Argos

      My Crucifixion

      The Word

      The Farrier

      Ghazal

      All Souls

      Brave Sparrow

      Pay-Per-View

      Cerberus

      Pax Geologica

      from The Neighbor (1995)

      Archimedes

      2212 West Flower Street

      The House of Being

      The Barber

      The Rancher

      Mission Boulevard

      The Steam Engine

      Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors

      Letter from Mrs. C. G. Vogt

      The Water Dream

      from The Folded Heart (1989)

      North Corridor

      Spider Tumor

      Burial

      The Problem

      The Heavy Light of Shifting Stars

      Feedback

      The Cave

      from The Clasp (1986)

      Aquarium

      White Strawberries

      In Khabarovsk

      Bruges

      Two Girls in a Chair

      The Clasp

      New Poems (2021)

      A Man of Rueful Countenance

      A True Story about a Cat and a Possum

      Bee to Keeper

      Portrait of Two Young Couples

      Colloquy with a Polish Aunt

      The Salvation of America

      Goat on a Pile of Scrap Lumber

      Cyclist Braking for Two Foxes Crossing a Country Road in Early Morning

      Morning Crows in a Fresh Mown Field before Rain

      His Highness’s Dog at Kew

      Penn Relays

      Winter

      Our Felix Randal

      In Life

      Bluebirds

      Poem for a Sixtieth Birthday

      Today I Can Write

      To the Muse of Dying

      Tree beyond Your Window

      Notes

      Acknowledgments

      Many thanks to the editors of the following publications in which these poems first appeared:

      American Poetry Review: "To the Muse of Dying and Winter"

      Atlantic: "Goat on a Pile of Scrap Lumber, Penn Relays, and Tree beyond Your Window"

      Chicago Quarterly Review: "Cyclist Braking for Two Foxes Crossing a Country Road in Early Morning"

      Birmingham Poetry Review: "Bluebirds"

      B O D Y: "Morning Crows in a Fresh Mown Field before Rain"

      Georgia Review: "A Man of Rueful Countenance, Colloquy with a Polish Aunt, Our Felix Randal, and Today I Can Write"

      The Hopkins Review: "A True Story about a Cat and a Possum and For a Sixtieth Birthday"

      Ploughshares: "In Life"

      Poetry Northwest: "His Highness’s Dog at Kew"

      "Portrait of Two Young Couples and The Salvation of America" first appeared in The Eloquent Poem: 128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making, edited by Elise Paschen (New York: Persea Books, 2019).

      "Aquarium, White Strawberries, In Khabarovsk, Bruges, Two Girls in a Chair, and The Clasp" from The Clasp, copyright 1986 by Michael Collier. Published by Wesleyan University Press and reprinted with permission.

      "North Corridor, Spider Tumor, Burial, The Problem, The Heavy Light of Shifting Stars, Feedback, and The Cave" from The Folded Heart, copyright 1989 by Michael Collier. Published by Wesleyan University Press and reprinted with permission.

      "Argos, My Crucifixion, The Word, The Farrier, Ghazal, All Souls, Brave Sparrow, Pay-Per-View, Cerberus, and Pax Geologica" from The Ledge, copyright 2000 by Michael Collier. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

      "Birds Appearing in a Dream, Confessional, Summer Anniversary, Bird Crashing into Window, The Watch, The Missing Mountain, Singing, 5 A.M., Mine Own John Clare, Elegy for a Long-Dead Friend A Line from Robert Desnos Used to Commemorate George ‘Sonny’ Took-the-Shield, Fort Belknap, Montana, and Bardo" from Dark Wild Realm, copyright 2006 by Michael Collier. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

      "An Individual History, My Mother of Invention, Grandmother with Mink Stole, Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, Arizona, 1959, Cyclops, At the End of a Ninetieth Summer, Brendan’s Hair, Piety, Doctor Friendly, History, Rabid Head, The Bees of Deir Kifa, Embrace, Laelaps, and Six Lines for Louise Bogan" from An Individual History, copyright 2012 by Michael Collier. Used by permission of W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.

      I’m grateful for the editors I’ve worked with over the years and thank them for their encouragement: Jeannette Hopkins at Wesleyan University Press; Randy Petilos at the University of Chicago Press; Janet Silver at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Jill Bialosky at W. W. Norton and Company. I thank stalwarts in life and art Charles Baxter, David Biespiel, Maud Casey, Jennifer Grotz, Edward Hirsch, Garrett Hongo, Sally Keith, Jim Longenbach, Tom Mallon, John Murphy, Patrick Phillips, Buzz Poverman, Alan Shapiro, Tom Sleigh, Elizabeth Spires, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Josh Weiner. And I thank my family for their love: David, Emma Claire, Kay, Robert, and William.

      from My Bishop and Other Poems (2018)

      Meadow

      Moments that were tender—if I can use that word—now rendered in memory’s worn face, have names attached and, less vivid, places that are more frequented than present places. Four decades is not so long ago, when facing an open window, hands braced against the sill (moonlight on her back) and, outside, grass in furrows,or so it seems to me who’s never left for long that window or looked much beyond the meadow and yet have continually wondered what she was looking at, having never, as far as I can see, looked back.

      My Bishop

      The summer of high school graduation I felt God was calling me to the priesthood.

      What I mean by calling is not that he spoke to me in a language I understood but that he had given me access to immense and ecstatic experiences of love and joy, not real experiences but ones I perceived as if a limitless future was inside me, as if, and this is why it seemed like a calling, I was

      being invited to see the world that lay behind and beyond the one we are born into.

      I began to kneel in my bedroom and pray, not prayers I had been taught but rather ones that inhabited me and for which I was their instrument.

      Sometimes as I prayed the sun would come down out of the sky and compress into a flower.

      Sometimes people I did not know

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