Celebrating Ann Michael and Her Poetry in Trexler Library
During the month of April, Trexler Library celebrates National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate than featuring Ann Michael, assistant director of the DSU Writing Center and published poet.
Name: Ann Michael
Role: Assistant Director of the DSU Writing Center
Number of Year(s) at DeSales: 18 years
Trexler Library: Tell us a little about yourself! How long have you been at DeSales? When did your love for teaching English begin?
Ann Michael: I have been teaching at DSU for about 18 years—I started as a part-time instructor. I spent quite a few years doing other types of work before I got into teaching after earning my master’s degree (in my 40s). I was a proofreader, a typesetter, a copyeditor, and a magazine writer, and I occasionally taught poetry in the schools through various PA arts grants. During many of those years, I was also pretty much a full-time mom.
Most of my fellow MFA grads went on to teach creative writing, but I found that I enjoy teaching composition and rhetoric...I discovered that while teaching at a community college.
Trexler: What has your time at DeSales meant to you, and how have your students impacted your career?
Ann: I've enjoyed my job here because of the students and my colleagues. My colleagues in the Academic Success Center taught me so much. They demonstrate empathy, kindness, wisdom, and a very special type of acumen that has helped so many students. Plus they're nice folks!
Young people introduce me to new vocabulary, new music, new technology. And I enjoy what I discover about them when I work with them on their essays; it's interesting to learn what they're learning: history, medical science, psychology, supply chain management, whatever. My father was a college professor as well as a Presbyterian minister, and it was fun to share teaching, administrative, and theological or ethical challenges and experiences with him. He died in 2020, so those memories mean a great deal to me.
As to my career...most poets don't earn a living by writing, so it has been terrific to have a career at DSU. When my kids were little, they thought having a mother who was a poet was cool and unique, but once they got into middle school they decided having a poet as a mom was weird. My position here let them pretend their mother had a "normal job." (By the way, now they're in their 30s and have returned to thinking I'm interestingly abnormal).
Trexler: When did your love of poetry begin?
Ann: Childhood, probably. No—certainly! But I didn’t consider myself as a person who writes poetry until I was about 21 years old and started to get some work in print.
Trexler: Who or what inspired you to write poetry?
Ann: Poetry’s everywhere. I listened. Nursery rhymes, prayers, song lyrics, Shakespeare, children’s books. I love to read, so I loved to write.
Trexler: Is there a poem or poet that has impacted you or your style of writing?
Ann: More than one, and changing over time, since change is what life’s all about—and change is necessary for any kind of artistic pursuit. But a few poets stay on as favorites…Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver, John Donne, Federico Garcia Lorca, Wisława Szymborska, Walt Whitman, Marie Ponsot. I could go on and am certainly missing some beloved favorites.
Trexler: Can you tell us about your latest poetry publication The Red Queen Hypothesis and where/when/how people can read it?
Ann: This collection is one I put together when I was trying to learn more about what we call formal strategies in poetry. That means the practice of writing things like sonnets, pantoums, sestinas and different types of metrical verse. The majority of my poems have been free verse, but I love forms—I just was not very good at writing them. So I practiced—and revised—and worked until I felt more confident. Many of these poems appeared in literary magazines and online journals, and then the manuscript won the Prairie State Poetry Prize. It will be published this summer.
I’ve been blogging for many years, and links to some of these poems and to my other books live on my site, which is www.annemichael.blog
Trexler: What are some common themes in your poetry, or what do you find yourself writing about the most?
Ann: My work has definite place-based aspects. I don’t really mean to write about the environment, but nature and natural images appear in my work regularly, probably because that’s where I put my attention and observation. Also relationships, human and otherwise, and the Big Themes: death, gratitude, change, love. Bits of science and philosophy/theology show up occasionally as well, and family (i.e., relationships, death, gratitude, change, love).
Trexler: What are you currently working on?
Ann: I’m always revising poems. My next manuscript deals with what I’m grateful for and what I find myself having to let go of. I’m also working on a series of poems about an American soldier imprisoned during the Korean War.
Trexler: What advice would you give to an inspiring writer / poet?
Ann: Read voraciously, write often, revise. Don’t get hypercritical of your own work. Don’t expect miracles or praise. Keep going.
