Alan Michael Parker

Biography

Alan Michael Parker is the author of nine collections of poems, including The Age of Discovery (Tupelo, 2020), and four novels. He is the Houchens Professor of English at Davidson College, and his awards include three Pushcart Prizes, two selections in Best American Poetry, the North Carolina Book Award, the Lunate 500 Prize, and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. 

See Work

POETRY / Spring 2021

High School Reunion Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2021

Community Garden Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2021

Greek Diner Coffee Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2021

Change Your Life Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2021

Jewish Christmas Eve Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2021

Don’t Hate Your Daddy Bingo

By Alan Michael Parker
POETRY / Spring 2019

Birth of the Cool

By Alan Michael Parker

It must be so hard to be Miles Davis

and a ghost, and to sit in my kitchen

as I squeal along on a dime-store horn

 

POETRY / Spring 2019

The Microeconomics of Love

By Alan Michael Parker

I put a poem

in your backup jewelry box,

the one you keep

at the bottom of the taxes from 2003

in order to foil the inevitable burglars,

POETRY / Spring 2019

Poem

By Alan Michael Parker

1. Dad, Don’t Be That Guy

2. Dad, Quoting the Wikipedia Isn’t Gospel

3. Dad, I’m Going to Take Those Away

4. Dad, I Warned You

POETRY / Spring 2019

What Good Is Life Without Painting

By Alan Michael Parker

I was participating fully in Life,

or so my calendar said,

 

when I had the spiritually extravagant

gift of being heart-struck,

standing before a painting.