Michael Meyerhofer’s Pure Elysium is a paradise, a sweet ride through imagination’s  wide, un-mown fields.  These compact and wildly various poems- funny, serious, personal, global- continually surprise and delight. -- Dorianne Laux

Michael Meyerhofer's poems reside mainly in narrative. But even though they typically begin and operate in story, they often end with an interesting lyric curl, and it is these endings that make me want to go back and reconsider their lineages. Pure Elysium's final poem--a lyric, interestingly, which holds much to admire--declares that "we all carry the gene for greatness." There may indeed be some of that destiny inviting us to peek at its evolution here. —C. J. Sage

 

If this collection is Pure Elysium, then I never want to be impure again. Give me flappers with a flat tire, make my wallet turn up under a bed skirt, and let me listen to, “the sound of two hands clapping / in the vacuum between stars.” Michael Meyerhofer is the master of the twist, the patron saint of lines embodying equal parts comedy and poignancy. This collection is nothing like the knights who “woke in such a fuss / that they dressed themselves backwards,” and readers will want to wear the opposite of chainmail when reading these poems. In short, Meyerhofer has done it again. We’re lightning-struck, and it is the best kind of blessing. —Mary Biddinger