Elizabeth Michaud’s debut collection creeps into consciousness the way echoes of place and people weave through slumber—a storied patchwork recollecting love and loss and longing. With narrative lyricism and an imaginative prowess for keen social commentary and the observational (extra)ordinary, Michaud spins whispered bedside prayers, love potions, campfire-cautionary tales, ghostly forms, and meter and verse. From our daydreams, waking dreams, “take these reckless sighs I breathe / and this weakness in my knees” dreams, to our anxiety-fueled, “she chants her words for all to hear / And one by one, they fall in fear” lore, Five Dreams lures us with both the threat and promise of waking, while reminding us not all nightmares fall away with the sleep from our eyes.
