Night of the Grizzly
Poems by Michael Burns
Edited with an Afterword by Marcus Cafagña

Night of the Grizzly, Michael Burns’s last book, was a finished manuscript at the time of his passing and reflects an incisive poet at the height of his powers. Burns has an ear for language as satisfying as Robert Frost’s and a knack for storytelling Robert Penn Warren would envy. His deep image poems evoke primal experiences that take us beyond the dulling influence of this life.

Twenty-one of the thirty-six poems printed here have appeared in such distinguished venues as The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Western Humanities Review, The Laurel Review, and Moon City Review.

Michael Burns helped found the Creative Writing Program at Missouri State University, where he taught for twenty-five years. A graduate of the University of Arkansas Creative Writing Program, he published two chapbooks, When All Else Failed and And As for Darkness, and two books of poetry, The Secret Names and It Will Be All Right in the Morning. He also edited two books of critical essays. Born June 3, 1953 in Egypt, Arkansas, Burns retired to Louisville, Kentucky, where he passed away on October 27, 2011.

Marcus Cafagña is professor of English at Missouri State University, where he teaches creative writing. He has authored two books of poetry: The Broken World (a National Poetry Series selection) and Roman Fever. His poems have appeared in The Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Southern Poetry Review, and Quarterly West.

July 2012
6 x 9, 78 pages
$10.95 paper
978-0-913785-38-6

Distributed for Moon City Press.