Waifs and Strays

by Micah Ballard

In the sixth publication in the City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series, Cajun poet Micah Ballard's Waifs and Strays recombines the allure, fixations and diction of the metaphysical poets with the alert and streetwise urban fracturing and amazements instantaneous in contemporary San Francisco. With the haunted elegance of Charles Baudelaire and the handmade warmth of Semina , Waifs and Strays is a rejection of a slick and disposable culture. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Micah Ballard studied at New College of California, working with David Meltzer, Joanne Kyger and Tom Clark. He currently co-directs the MFA in writing program at University of San Francisco. He co-edits Auguste Press.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2011

About the author

Born in Baton Rouge, Micah Ballard studied at New College of California, working with David Meltzer, Joanne Kyger, and Tom Clark. He currently co-directs the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco and co-edits Auguste Press and Lew Gallery Editions.

Reviews

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ballard's poems wear their faux beat artifice on their sleeves a bit much for my taste. In the end, they feel like their trying to be hep and cool, rather than just being, so the leaps feel calculated, the language predestined.

[Parker Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much loved this collection. "Width of a Circle" is one of my new favorite poems of all time.

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We 'exit through a trap door' like Orpheus through the silvered mirror. We are pirates, inmates, benefactors, ghosts. We are always on the move, on a journey remembering to chart and map the future, the poems, Waifs and Strays , a magical gift to give away. This is a breathtaking book of evocations, provocations, revelations." –-Norma Cole

"Though raised in Baton Rouge, La., Ballard now seems energetically tied to San Francisco, since his offhand intensities, fiercely casual stance, quick free verse, and colloquial mysticism draw so frequently on two great sources of Bay Area poetics, the prophetic concentration of Robert Duncan and the extroversion of the beats. Often he builds bridges from a bohemian life in this world to greatness in the next. 'Pools of Olympia' (which may refer to Greek gods or to hard liquor, or to both) imagines 'smashed glass gutter core/ exact proportions darkly mingled... the highest farewell between heaven and earth.' Ballard explains in a longer poem how 'Alive/ in being gone/ I seek what you have not/ & dilate my margins/ to form a heaven/ underground.' Ballard updates his sources with hip-hop and indie-rock references (Guided by Voices, Morrissey), presenting his own inner quests as ambivalent models: 'what some find as flaws/ I claim as divine rites/ do not try to follow me/ it's up to you to stake out/ your own fortress.' Ballard (Parish Krewes) comes by his beat heritage personally, having studied with, and then worked alongside, David Meltzer. Followers of Meltzer’s lineage, or of beat writing in general, may find him not just engaging but irreplaceable." -- Publishers Weekly


"Highly stylized, fairly experimental, and original, the poems rely on sequential 'disruption' underpinned by a solidly smoldering focus. The thematic transference of significance becomes a mantra of sustenance amidst an arranged wilderness, 'It is all imagined, anchored by the word.'" -- Brooklyn Rail