Born in 1984, Michael G. Donkin writes poetry and essays. He is now completing a dissertation on theories of poetry's past and its possible future. He has been teaching composition and Intro to Poetry at the University of Oregon.

His book Dreaming at Noon was published in the fall of 2023, and is available.

Links to Michael’s published works can be found on this page. To get in touch, reach out here.

Dreaming at Noon

Why shouldn't the sun shine in the night sky, with the stars? Though clearly still enamored of our sun, the poems of Dreaming at Noon call into question the primacy of daylight reality. For who is to say that the dream isn't as meaningful as waking life? Or how could one doubt that dreams put dreamers in touch with ultimate reality? Those exhausted by a future-driven culture of ceaseless innovation are, with this work, encouraged to reclaim past, present, and future-imagination and actuality-as a whole.

  • “In this astonishing debut, every path leads to an open door of original thought. Via a fully formed prophetic voice, the warring forces of the human world are distilled to reveal their hidden life. Donkin’s are poems that feel as permanent as the sun and sea.”

    –Derek Thomas Dew

  • “As Marina Tsvetaeva writes, a poem must end unexpectedly, and so lead the reader up and away. Donkin’s brilliant, magical, and genuinely original poems do just that. The course of one will shift, its destination defying predictability. It circles its narrowing object and disappears high up, in the infinite, leaving this reader with an intense desire to contemplate and understand.”

    –Julia Nemirovskaya

  • “Dreaming is an archive of the contemporary imagination. It is a work that revives the gravity of a most provocative relation: belonging and duration within both life and death.”

    –B Lee-Harrison Aultman