Imago Mundi, by Michelle Mitchell-Foust

ISBN: 1-932418-12-1
$14

Michelle Mitchell-Foust was born in Monticello, Illinois on March 29, 1963. She is the author of Circassian Girl, which was the winner of the Elixir Press Poetry Prize in 2001. Her poetry has been anthologized in Wild Flowers Every Year (James Publishing Company), Chapter and Verse (HWA), New Voices: University and College Poetry Prizes (Academy of American Piets), The Best Writers at Work Anthology (Pecan Grove Press), Missouri Arts Council Writers' Biennial Anthology (The Missouri Review). Ms. Mitchell-Foust's honors include a Discovery/The Nation Award, the Columbia University poetry prize, the Missouri Arts Council Writers' Biennial Award, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. She has received fellowships from the Writers at Work foundation as well as the University of Missouri-Columbia. She is a founder of the Casa Romantica Poetry Series, and an American Poet in Residence at the Poets' House in Donegal, Ireland. She lives in Southern California with her husband.

Praise for Imago Mundi

A relentlessly curious empiricist happily at large in the world's plenitude--a plenitude as mythical as it is sensuous--Michelle Mitchell-Foust is somehow also a connoisseur of the eerie and the spectral. Master of the odd, brilliantly lit detail, she excels as well at the labyrinthine, filigreed narrative in which contemporary and historical and fabulous figures intertwine. Hers is a singular and ambitious sensibility that at every unpredictable turn testifies to her devotion to the concrete word. --Stephen Yenser

There's no denying the love Michelle has for the sublime and grotesque. She's not afraid to blow out the candle and speak with spirits, to look at things most would turn away from. I have to believe in those dark places or other worlds that writers tend to live, Michelle developed a language, one that fascinates me. Imago Mundi introduced to me her rare language--one all her own--one that is full of heart. With Imago Mundi, she invited me to listen to her language--and if you listen you will leave inspired--like I did. --Mark Polish