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New Meridian Arts is a creative community dedicated to publishing innovative literature and poetry that gives voice to original writers of talent and scope around the world.
Middle-age finds boy-next-door turned do-gooder turned poet Shaun Anthony McMichael in a Dantesque darkened wood. Upheavals in his core relationships at work and home have forced his life into flux. Set amid the political and spiritual turmoil of the 2020s, JACK OF ALL…, an autobiography in verse, organizes around card game suits (Clubs, Hearts, Spades, Diamonds) and corresponding life forces (Work, Faith, Trouble, Worth). The collection presents poetry in McMichael’s probative, lyrical, and romantic voice as he adopts the everyman persona of “Jack” in forms contemporary and classic to interrogate the topics of race, faith, fatherhood, despair, daring, and fidelity in sickness and in health. In each poem, plainspoken and baroque registers embrace. Authenticity over conformity, and the joys and challenges of parenting and marriage shine through along with McMichael’s apocalyptic symbol set. Through these 63 poems, McMichael composes a rogue’s playbook for this game of life.
Shaun Anthony McMichael is the author of the short story collection THE WILD FAMILIAR (CJ Press) and the editor of THE SHADOW BESIDE ME (2020) and THE STORY OF MY HEART (2021), poetry collections written by youth dealing with loss, mental illness, and instability. Since 2007, he has taught writing to students from around the world, in classrooms, juvenile detention halls, mental health treatment centers, and homeless youth drop-ins. Over 100 of his short stories, poems, essays, author interviews, and book reviews have been published online and in print. He lives with his wife and son in Seattle where he attends church most Sundays. In addition to teaching immigrants and refugees English at a public high school in Seattle’s White Center neighborhood, he hosts an annual literary art reading, Shadow Work Writers. Visit him at shaunanthonymcmichael.com.
