Michael Earl Craig
Poet Michael Earl Craig grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and was educated at Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Montana, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Influenced by artists as diverse as Werner Herzog, Julio Cortázar, Lou Reed, and James Tate, Craig’s poems question the assumptions and habits of daily life, using humor and frequent glimpses of a torqued pastoral landscape. “His poems are hilarious, but not without stoicism; absurd but not indulgently so; hidden and insane but not without affection,” notes critic John Deming in a Coldfront review of Yes, Master. On the occasion of his 2003 inclusion in the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poetry Series, Craig stated, “I don’t think you get to choose the direction you go in. Not really. You interpret lumps in the sandbox the same way now as you did when you were five. All one can do is drift—or gravitate, if that’s easier—back toward—or go, one could simply go—back toward the very inner self, which was there, intact, at the outset.”
Influenced by artists as diverse as Werner Herzog, Julio Cortázar, Lou Reed, and James Tate, Craig’s poems question the assumptions and habits of daily life, using humor and frequent glimpses of a torqued pastoral landscape. “His poems are hilarious, but not without stoicism; absurd but not indulgently so; hidden and insane but not without affection,” notes critic John Deming in a Coldfront review of Yes, Master. On the occasion of his 2003 inclusion in the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poetry Series, Craig stated, “I don’t think you get to choose the direction you go in. Not really. You interpret lumps in the sandbox the same way now as you did when you were five. All one can do is drift—or gravitate, if that’s easier—back toward—or go, one could simply go—back toward the very inner self, which was there, intact, at the outset.”
Craig’s poetry collections include Can You Relax in My House (2002), Yes, Master (2006), Thin Kimono (2010), and Talkativeness (2014). His work has been included in the anthologies Isn’t It Romantic (2004), Everyman’s Library Poems About Horses (2009), and The Best American Poetry (2014).
Craig lives near Livingston, Montana, where he works as a farrier.