The Only Worlds We Know by Michael Lee

Michael Lee’s second book of poetry, but first full-length text, The Only Worlds We Know, does not disappoint. If you are a fan of his spoken word artistry, you will love a plethora of poems in this longer book. As a huge fan of Lee and his work for many years, I read this with a loving bias, sometimes reading the poem in his voice and other times my own. Though, I also have the audiobook version of The Only Worlds We Know, which is entirely read by Michael Lee. It is lovely and haunting in a different way than the text.

True to his style, Lee’s poems can rattle your bones merely with words. From “The Pill”:

The pill a solar system
in the dead man’s eye. The pill
a white shadow dragging night
behind it.

From “Look”:

Eventually, everything that can look will look
away, and our memory, which is a kind of faith,
will be unable to carry even itself.

With experimentation with erasure poetry as a multi-poem series scattered throughout the book, you can see Lee’s growth as a poet. He also plays with white space on the page: “The Study of Doors and Knowing” includes an entire page that engages tension with white space and mere dots. Lee shows that poetry extends beyond words to the words left unsaid.

Michael Lee is known for writing about his previous addictions, mental health, and the premature death of his childhood best friend. Somewhere in these pages is comfort for human pain and the need for guidance. It is beautiful and painful and hopeful.

Find The Only Worlds We Know here!