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As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and care for our community, Just Buffalo Literary Center has postponed a number of events, and we will follow the guidance of Buffalo Public Schools in terms of Just Buffalo Writing Center programming.

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An Offering by Michael McGriff

If I were the type to look for a sign,
I might turn to the wet Coleman sleeping bag
in the bed of my truck, which is now
a motor lodge for worms and centipedes,
or I might consider the ‘74 De Ville limousine
parked forever in our neighbor’s yard,
an orange lifejacket hung from its boomerang antenna
like a horseshoe thrown by a drunken god
at a company picnic. But I’m not the type.
I am moved, however, to say something
about the alders, which are incandescent bones—
for ten years, while my father got ready for work,
it was my job to shovel the cold ash
from our woodstove and dump it at their feet.

About the Poet

Michael McGriff - Featured Artist - Just Buffalo Literary Center
Michael McGriff is an author, editor, and translator whose work centers on the intersection of surrealism with place, working-class narratives, and poverty in the rural American West. He was born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon, and studied creative writing at the University of Oregon, The Michener Center for Writers, and Stanford University.

McGriff is the author of five poetry collections, Angel Sharpening its Beak (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2025), Eternal Sentences (University of Arkansas Press, 2021), Early Hour, Home Burial, and Dismantling the Hills. His other books include the linked story collection Our Secret Life in the Movies (co-authored with J.M. Tyree); an edition of David Wevill’s essential writing, To Build My Shadow a Fire; and a translation of Tomas Tranströmer’s The Sorrow Gondola. He co-directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Idaho.

He is a former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and his work has been honored with a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice,” a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Bookforum, The Believer, Tin House, American Poetry Review, Poetry London, and on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday and PBS NewsHour. In addition to serving as co-director of the creative writing program at the University of Idaho, he works as an at-large editor for The Northwest Review.

Photo credit: Marcus Jackson

Related Event

    • Michael McGriff will join poet Cindy Juyoung Ok, along with a musical performance by the Austin, Texas-based regret pop band Sun June, and a visual art projection installation by award-winning Buffalo-based writer and visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger at the next Just Buffalo Literary Center Silo City Reading Series event from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 27 at Silo City (Marine A), 85 Silo City Row in Buffalo. Doors at 7:00 p.m. Reading begins at 7:30 p.m. Books of the featured poets are available for purchase from Fitz Books online and at the event.

The Poem of the Week feature is curated by literary legacy awardee R.D. Pohl.