National Poetry Month Spotlight: Michael V. Smith

Welcome to National Poetry Month! To celebrate this special time of year, we’ll feature a series of poet spotlights throughout April! Poetry is the backbone of our press and is near and dear to our hearts! To kick things off, we are shining a light on Michael V. Smith and sharing a poem from Queers Like Me.

Michael is a true delight, and his poetry is so honest and human. We’ve had the joy of working with him twice now, having published Body of Text (with co-author David Ellingsen) and Queers Like Me! We can’t wait for the coming fall season when we’ll be releasing his forthcoming collection, Soundtrack, which is available now for pre-order.

Without further ado, please enjoy “Honk” from Michael’s collection Queers Like Me. Please follow along for more National Poetry Month Poet Spotlights all month long.

Honk
if you read books as a kid
because they were safe
places to have feelings