On Michael Morse

I am eager to nominate Michael Morse. I find a keen and seamless craftsmanship in Morse's poems, which are beautifully understated and distinctly well made. They are quiet, but they have dark undertows, and I find some of them a little heartbreaking. There is real quality and depth in the poetry of this gifted and caring young poet.

—Edward Hirsch, author of six books of poems, most recently Lay Back the Darkness, and three prose books. He is the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.