Breach: Collected Poems

"Michael Rectenwald’s new collection of poems, Breach, offers a powerful and yet humble vision of the world where the poet has found new inroads to connectedness. Rectenwald manages to embrace and resist his subjects all at once—his authority is relinquished and, as such, the poems are invitations to the readers. He speaks not for us or to us, but with us: 'The lone tree quotes the aesthetic of/all trees so all trees/don’t have to be trees.' The strength of these poems is not in the breach of contract with the world, but the breach in confidence and authority… a leap into humility and the unknown. These poems will connect you to a world you think you already know." – Rob Fitterman, author of twelve books of poetry, including Rob The Plagiarist, and Now We Are Friends. "The speaker of Michael Rectenwald’s 'Split Personalities' says, 'we sting to survive.' Another turns 'Togetherness' into a Lennonesque walrus of self-doubt. And in 'My Son Signals,' the speaker concludes, 'The world’s nothing but/one gesturing after/another.' "In Breach, his new collection of poems, Michael Rectenwald stings, doubts, gestures. His forms range from the metered-and-rhymed, to the prose poem. His music ranges from post-doc analytics to morning after confessionals. The poems are surreal, hyperreal, they posit debtors in space, and wind up landing in Topeka, Kansas. It’s a wild ride. Exhaustion and promise coexist in the same line: 'It seems like the autumn of my youth.' Wisdom pours forth from children: 'Look Daddy … the future is MOVING.' "Yes, it is. And so is Breach." – Tim Tomlinson, co-author of the Portable MFA; co-founder, New York Writers Workshop