The Neighbor

by Michael Collier

The Neighbor is a book of portraits and portraiture. Like the eccentric and mysteriously heroic citizens of E. A. Robinson's Tilbury Town, Collier's figures haunt a startlingly familiar neighborhood. In clear, rich language, Collier reveals the complexities that emerge from his characters' seemingly uneventful lives.

Genres: Poetry

69 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Michael Robert Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripedes' Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Reviews

[Erin]

Fine. I wanted to love it more. Collier does have a beautiful way of pulling back and connecting to the larger scheme. The first poem in the book is stunning. The flower street poem is heartbreaking. I loved the raccoon. Individual poems stuck with me. But as a collection....

[Paige Goodwin]

"I know his magic was his silence -- / words held back from explanation, gestures / deflecting us from the visible, the unseen, / as if the skill of any work is how to turn / the difficult into something plain, the plain / back into its secret."