Michael Rothenberg
Michael Rothenberg (1951 – 2022) was an American poet, songwriter, editor, artist, and environmentalist. His published numerous books of poetry, including Nightmare of The Violins, Favorite Songs, Man/Women (a collaboration with Joanne Kyger), Unhurried Vision, Monk Daddy, The Paris Journals, Choose, My Youth As A Train, Murder, Sapodilla, and Drawing The Shade, among others. His poems have also appeared in New American Writing, Supplement v. 2, Brooklyn Rail, Sensitive Skin, Chiron Review, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, First Intensity, Cortland Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, among many others.
"There is energy in these poems by Michael Rothenberg, fueled by deaths in war, the police killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, and the deaths of mind and spirit within the malaise of present-day capitalist realities/complexities/obscenities. If truth in ideas and feeling are rare in the official discourse, let these poems ride like galloping horses to break free the truths trapped in the hi-def synthesized madness."—Luis J. Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles and author of My Nature is Hunger
"Michael Rothenberg has long been a tireless organizer--for poetry and with poetry--to make the world a kinder place. In Wildflowers for the Bullies, Rothenberg utters a cri de coeur against the viciousness that is in us and around us, slathered with imperial static. His words pour over the brim of the page, both funny and scary. Rothenberg writes in the key of Ginsberg, if Ginsberg had lived to see Moloch win."—Philip Metres, activist and author of Sand Opera (Alice James, 2015)
"It's not often that a collection of poetry grabs and grips the reader like Wildflowers for the Bullies by Michael Rothenberg. In it, he bravely and beautifully places squarely before us the ugly realities of the world we live in. His words bring a stark clarity and slow down that world to a slow crawl from day to agonizing day."– Jawanza Dumisani, author of Black Raising Cane Over Red (Glover Lane Press, 2014).
"In Wildflowers for the Bullies, Rothenberg takes energetic poetic aim at some of the most glaring political issues of the day, including racism, economic injustice, police brutality, and our overly commercialized culture industry with its “zombie billboards” and “sponsored straightjackets.” In his deeply moving poem, “War,” Rothenberg uses varied and inventively phrased perspectives (“We imagine the shark a killing machine / We become the killing machine”) to note how thoroughly the idea of war has infiltrated Americans’ daily lives, offering “love as the answer.” —Eliot Katz, author of Unlocking the Exits (Coffee House Press) and The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg (Beatdom Books).