The Beginning of Undoing
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$23.00
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Kelsay Books
The Beginning of Undoing
$23.00
Sale price
$23.00
Regular price
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In this sweeping and evocative collection, John Milkereit's comic charm and wild imagination return to explore what happened and what's possible, shuttling us through outer space and last night's date, the macro and micro disappointments and desires of our all-too-human hearts. With guest appearances by Cher and Pissarro, a disco-loving alien and Willy Wonka at a chili cookoff, the impossible becomes plausible in these wry, vibrant, continually surprising poems. "Remember to take note of one's / whole life," The Beginning of Undoing tells us - then, "Open the future / behind you / in a black drawer."
-Cait Weiss Orcutt, author, VALLEYSPEAK
Milkereit's poetry is delicious with detail, each work a pastiche of sumptuous specificity and gorgeous word choices. We are transported effortlessly into memories that parallel our own. Seldom do we encounter poetry this vivid and arresting, snapshots we want to pore over and return to time and time again.
-Lorette C. Luzajic, founding editor, The Ekphrastic Review and The Mackinaw
One of the poems in The Beginning of Undoing opens with a crow on Christmas Eve, arriving "to unload ribboned packages of breath." Milkereit doesn't explain the crow's presence. He lets the unexpected bird work its unexpected magic, leading to a breathtaking close, as the crow "caws into / my lungs - a softness, his lullaby. / He makes me his song." This is the enchantment that awaits you in The Beginning of Undoing: the poems will make you their song.
-David Meischen, author, Caliche Road Poems
Book Details
- Publisher:
- Kelsay Books
- ISBN:
- 9781639808472
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Pages:
- 106
- Authors:
- John Milkereit
- Published Date:
- 2025-11-21
- Language:
- English
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About John Milkereit
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In The Beginning of Undoing, John Milkereit writes poems that center the tempo, isolation and longing of our world. These narrative and lyrical pieces travel time and space to provide windows into the speaker's childhood, early adulthood, and more current glimpses of life.
In the poem, "If Life Is So Much More Evaluation Than It Appears, Why Isn't There a Hotline to Call?" Milkereit explores demands on our pace. I like this line in particular: "I was born in slowness; it only / worsened as it sped up." And the poem's end: "And here I am, the last / one left in the theater, clapping my hands at the empty chairs."
Earlier in the collection, I found "The Model Railroad" a nice capsule of childhood whimsy and a longing to explore. We see a model railroad that folds into the wall and a pet mouse who wanders the train set town unnoticed. The poem takes a lovely turn at the end describing its model residents: "They had never been to France or seen / a play, and neither had their operator, not yet / since memory hadn't arrived."
There's a moment in the poem "Against Isolation" that's stuck with me. The speaker gives us a portrait of early adulthood, a first car purchase, a blind date, and then an endearing bit of reality: "I was 24, living in / Shreveport, barely getting into the economy, / buying packs of cigarettes for my neighbor if / she agreed to cook before we watched / Murder, She Wrote..." How utterly relatable. We don't often get poems that describe such a common scene of both warmth and isolation.
These poems understand life's moments of boredom and uplift. They made me think about the value of life on pause: the model train in stasis, the empty movie theater, the comfort of watching TV with anyone by our side.