Publisher's Synopsis
Ask the Mad Poet: Observations from My Homeland in a Time of Convoluted Realities begins with the title poem, an invitation to "Ask the Mad Poet" (what better commentator on a mad world?), and ends with "I Ask a Few Questions," a long, surreal overview of the poet's generation based on a dream. In between, the fifty-four other poems, written from 2007 through 2014, include history, social commentary, celebrations, and, in "Mater Dei, Mater Gaia," advocacy for Mother Earth. These are the poems of an aging man, lived beyond his three score ten, much of it working with the dispossessed, who feels a call to witness truth to power on behalf of the earth, the least among us, and the way things really are: a cry for balance in a world where the kings are in the counting house, the peasants fight for crumbs, and Mother Gaia burns.
Michael Patrick Emery grew up in remote ranch country in Eastern Idaho, moved on to Los Angeles in search of better-paying work, stumbled/lucked into a transformative education-liberal arts at Occidental College (BA, psychology/philosophy) and clinical psychology (PhD) at Columbia University-and fled back to Idaho via a Peace Corps Training program. He practiced psychology, quit, ranched, and, stove up, went back into private practice, working mostly with the courts, including consultation and expert testimony regarding aggravation/mitigation in sentencing, competency, disability determination, and support for developmental disability programs. He was privileged to learn the wisdom of the dispossessed and feels charged with the responsibility to share it. From there, poetry was inevitable. Now semi-retired, he lives in a round straw-bale house with writer/artist partner Susan and a border collie near the small artist colony of El Morro, New Mexico. He reads most Sundays with the Zuni Mountain Poets.