Welcome to the January 2018 edition of Blue Heron Speaks. We begin the journey of a new year with our featured poet, Michael Hettich, author of over a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, including Systems of Vanishing (University of Tampa Press, 2014), The Animals Beyond Us (New Rivers Press, 2011), and Like Happiness (Anhinga Press, 2010). His latest book is The Frozen Harbor (Red Dragonfly Press, 2017). There is a surreal magic to Michael Hettich’s poems. We enter worlds where everyday moments and elements become extraordinary and mysterious. While becoming one with the imagination of his work, we too, feel like birds who, “swirl themselves up into the unencumbered sky.” There is a fluidity between the natural world and the world of humans in these poems. We are left pondering our inner lives as birds, dogs, or shells, and we are reminded of the fragility of life itself. We view the world through Hettich’s gifted, unique voice as he beckons us to, “Just imagine/the vast forests of lives, the near-infinity of forms/brought to a halt with a simple conversation.”

Visit the Blue Heron Speaks Featured Author page of our site to read 3 sample poems by Michael Hettich, and to learn more about his books. We are honored to feature the work of Michael Hettich, and we know that our readers will truly enjoy his poetry. These are poems meant to be savored.

Michael Hettich has published over a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, including Systems of Vanishing (winner of the Tampa Review Prize, 2014), The Animals Beyond Us (New Rivers, 2011), and Like Happiness (Anhinga, 2010). His new book, The Frozen Harbor, won the David Martinson/Meadowhawk Prize and was published this summer by Red Dragonfly Press. In addition to Blue Heron Review, his work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review, Orion, Poetry East, and TriQuarterly. He lives in Miami, where he regularly collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers. His website is michaelhettich.com