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Michelle Bitting (born February, 1964 in
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
) is an American
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
who was honored on March 8, 2012 with the position of Poet Laureate of
Pacific Palisades, California Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood in the Westside Los Angeles, Westside region of Los Angeles, California, situated about west of Downtown Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades was formally founded in 1921 by a Chautauqua, Methodist organization, an ...
.


Early life and education

Bitting grew up in Pacific Palisades. Studied theater at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
and pursued careers in dance and culinary arts before turning her focus to writing in 2001. She received an MFA in writing and poetry from Pacific University, Oregon in 2009. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Pacific University, Oregon. She is a PhD candidate in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute.


Career

Bitting is the author of three collections of poetry: ''Notes to the Beloved'' (Winner of the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award, 2011), ''Good Friday Kiss'' (C&R Press, 2008), and ''Blue Laws'' (Finishing Line Press, 2007). ''Good Friday Kiss'' was chosen by
Thomas Lux Thomas Lux (December 10, 1946 – February 5, 2017) was an American poet who held the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and ran Georgia Tech's "Poetry @ Tech" program. He wrote fourteen ...
as the winner of the 2007 DeNovo Prize for 1st Book of Poetry. Publications that have printed her poetry and fiction includ
''American Poetry Review''''Narrative Magazine''''Prairie Schooner''''Verse Daily''''LA Weekly''''Rattle''
an

In collaboration with her husband, actor Phil Abrams, Bitting adapted a number of her works for the visual medium known as poem films, some of which were presented b
''Atticus Review''
an
''Moving Poems''
Bitting collaborated with the non-profit
California Dance Institute California Dance Institute (CDI) was founded in 2001 by Joffrey Ballet principal dancer Carole Valleskey. CDI was founded as a West Coast affiliate of Jacques d'Amboise's National Dance Institute. CDI teachers have all been trained in the rigorous ...
to implement a poetry component within its inner city middle school performing arts program for the
Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...
. She has taught poetry in the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
Writer's Program, and is also a California Poet in the Schools, serving hundreds of students in Southern California. Her poetry outreach work also includes teaching the incarcerated at
Twin Towers Correctional Facility The Twin Towers Correctional Facility, also referred to in the media as Twin Towers Jail, is a complex in Los Angeles, California. The facility is located at 450 Bauchet Street, in Los Angeles, California and is operated by the Los Angeles Cou ...
in Los Angeles, CA with grants from ''Poets and Writers Magazine''.


Personal life

Bitting lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Phil Abrams, and their two children.


Awards

Bitting's first collection, Good Friday Kiss (2008, C&R Press) was chosen by Thomas Lux as the winner of the DeNovo First Book Award. Her second collection, Notes to the Beloved (2012, SPC Press) won the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award and received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews. A third collection, The Couple Who Fell to Earth (2016, C&R Press) also received a starred review and was named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016. She has won the Beyond Baroque Foundation, Virginia Brendemuehl, and Glimmer Train poetry contests, and has been a finalist for the Poet's & Writer's Magazine California Exchange, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Julia Peterkin, among others. *2004
Glimmer Train Poetry Contest for ''"Trees"''
*2005 - ''Rock & Sling’s'' Virginia Brendemuehl Prize for ''"Good Friday Kiss"'' *2007

*2011
Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award
*2011

*2018 - Mark Fischer Poetry Prize


Works

Bitting's poems have been published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Paris-American, Narrative, The New York Times, Plume, River Styx, The L.A. Weekly, Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, diode, Linebreak, Anti-, Poemeleon, Passages North, Silk Road, The Cortland and Naugatuck River Reviews, among many others. Individual poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. Most recently she's been nominated for - The Pablo Neruda, The American Literary Review, and Tupelo Quarterly poetry prizes (2016)


Collections

*2018
"Broken Kingdom"
*2017
"Notes to the Beloved"
*2016 -
The Couple Who Fell To Earth"
*2012
''"Notes to the Beloved"''
*2008
''"Good Friday Kiss"''
*2007
''"Blue Laws"''


Anthologies

*2011 - Marin Center Poetry Anthology, Spring (Poems: ''"Faulkner Farms"'', ''"My Bukowski Life"'') *2005
Traveling: An Anthology of Award-Winning Poetry, edited by John Reid
(Poem: ''"Trees"'') *2002 - Emily Dickinson Awards Anthology, Vol. 7 (Poem: ''"At The Theme Park"'')


Selected Poems

*2011
''"Black Guitar'""
*2011
''"Epiphany"''
*2011
''"On Any Day Like Alice"''
*2011
''"After Four Days of Hammering Rain"''
*2011
''"Wheel of Fortune"''
*2010
''"Mammary"''
*2010

*2009

*2009

*2009
''"Mother’s Day Omen"''
*2007
''"Little Gifts"''
(Micro fiction) *2006

(Finalist in 2005 poetry contest)


Poem Films


''"In Praise of My Brother, The Painter"''''"The Call"''


Reviews

''"Notes to the Beloved"'' brims with the language of a fully lived life. A powerful female voice, body, spirit and sensibility inhabits this book and shakes it to the core. Bitting is at her best here: unbridled, open, aware. ~ Dorianne Laux, author of ''"The Book of Men"'' and ''"Facts About the MoonAnna"''
Richly dense in both language and insight into the human heart, Michelle Bitting's ''"Notes to the Beloved"'' is a stunning collection of poems. As a fiction writer I am thrilled particularly by her voice, by the yearning of her poetic persona for a self, for a place in the universe, that yearning being the deeply beating heart of narrative as well. She is one of my favorite poets and this book will abide in me for a long, long time to come. ~ Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning ''"A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain"''
This amazing book will get inside you. ''"Notes to the Beloved"'' pulses with immediacy. The sensory language, the resolute momentum, a large and courageous heart--here is a rare, seductive wholeness. Michelle Bitting's poetry is at once personal and transcendent. What could be better? ~ Marvin Bell, author of ''"Vertigo"'' and ''"Mars Being Red"''
The poems of Michelle Bitting's gorgeous new collection, ''"Notes to the Beloved"'', feel like exquisite origami epistles that their recipients (and her readers) are asked to unfold the way the lovers of these poems have unfolded each others bodies. These eloquent reflections on love both found and lost echo with desire, humor, and a fierce sense of continued hope, reminding us that torn valentines are sometimes the most beautiful. ~ David St. John, author of ''"The Auroras"'' and ''"The Face"''
''"...Bitting proves herself a sister poet to Anne Sexton, Sharon Olds and Sheryl St. Germain."'' ~ Kirkus Book Reviews, March 29th, 2012
''"After reading this book not only did I understand the physical world in a more intimate and immediate way but I felt more a part of it."'' ~ Matthew Dickman, March 22nd, 2012: Free Verse: Notes To The Beloved, Tin House Blog


Praise and Reviews for "The Couple Who Fell to Earth"

In a multi-directional “one shape” of voices, time, people, spaces Bitting takes us in and out of her all-seeing third eye poetics. We go into an orb of family, love, then we swoop out into the delight of humanity. And, in a sense, these refractions are “the self ’s / shady daguerreotype coming to surface / through exposure to light.” In day-to-day terms we find enlightenment and paradox “of death and peppermint,” of “birth and strange beauty,” of “Elysium nothingness” and “mythmaking machinery.” I find Michelle’s cosmic mechanics fused with historical platforms akimbo and the “sheen” of personal meditations, a rare accomplishment. A unique treasure of visions and voice. ~ Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate
If Louis C.K. is a comic’s comic, and Benoît Violier was a chef ’s chef, readers might think of Bitting as a poet’s poet. While she displays her wares for all to see - and admire - there is a level of excellence in her verse that should provide numerous pleasures for the connoisseur. In her new collection, she is often in conversation with poets, including Dante Alighieri, Wendell Berry, James Merrill, and Frank O’Hara. Near the heart of her book, the author gives readers in “When the Sky Makes a Certain Sign” one of those lines that might sneak into her obituary decades in the future: “Every poem’s a love poem.” And in every one of Bitting’s diamond-sharp verses, there is something to love. Readers should count themselves lucky if this sublime volume falls into their laps. With this poetry collection, the author firmly establishes herself as a powerful contemporary voice in American letters. ~ Kirkus Reviews May 2, 2016
Michelle Bitting is a poet of the natural world but in a completely Transcendental sense. Like Emerson, her poems seem to claim that, even in the face of all kinds of traumatic loss, “beauty breaks in everywhere.” The Couple Who Fell to Earth holds things of the world up to the eye in an effort to glimpse heaven, or as Bitting herself says, “Accept me. I love the dawn. / The sun is a sea / I throw myself into…” This book is all heart. ~Jericho Brown


References


External links


Rattle.com interview with Timothy GreenOfficial website
* ttp://www.palisadespost.com/lifestyles/content.php?id=7098/ ''Palisadean Post: "A Spirit from the Past Moves the Present"'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bitting, Michelle Living people People from Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles Poets from California UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni Pacific University alumni 1964 births American women poets 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers