The HyperTexts
Michael R. Burch Bio and Curriculum Vitae
Michael R. Burch is one of the world's most-published poets, with over 11,500 publications, including poems that have gone viral.
This does not include self-published writings; if
self-published writings were included Burch's total publications would be well
over 20,000. Burch has also had 74 poems set to music by composers, from swamp
blues to classical. Burch is also a longtime editor, publisher and translator of
Jewish Holocaust poetry and poems about the Trail of Tears, Hiroshima, Ukraine,
the Nakba and school shootings.
Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
To read his best poems, please click here:
The Best Poems of Michael R.
Burch (per Google and in his own opinion).
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do stars
applaud the glowworm’s stellar mimicry?
—excerpt from “Mayflies” by Michael R. Burch
Mike Burch, as he is known to family and friends, is an American poet, translator, essayist, editor, publisher
and logician who lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his
wife Beth, their son Jeremy, two outrageously spoiled puppies and a talkative
parakeet. Burch's poems,
haiku,
translations, essays, articles,
reviews, short stories,
song lyrics,
quotes, epigrams,
puns, jokes, literary
criticism and letters have appeared
around the globe in publications which include TIME, USA Today, The Guardian, The
Hindu, The Telegraph, BBC Radio 3, CNN.com, Daily Kos, The Washington Post,
The American Dissident, Journal of Arts and Humanities and
hundreds of literary journals, websites and blogs.
I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
—“Epitaph for a Homeless Child” by Michael R. Burch
If you would like to contact Mike Burch for more information, to collaborate, or
to obtain permission to republish his poems, translations or other work, he can
be reached via email at
mikerburch@gmail.com (email is preferable to
other methods such as social media and please be sure to note the "r" between
his first and last names). He strives to reply in person to all serious, civil
inquiries.
Black waters,
deep and dark and still …
all men have passed this way,
or will.
—“Styx” by Michael R. Burch, written as a teenager
Burch's original poems and translations have been published, either in whole or
in part, or otherwise cited by
37 colleges and universities which include: Athens, Auburn, Cambridge, Connecticut,
C.U.N.Y., Delhi, Edinburgh, Mahatma Gandhi Univ. (India), Gdansk (Poland), Hiroshima, Kent State, Kenyatta, Kerala
(India), Leicester, Lodz (Poland), Maribor (Slovenia), Massachusetts, Northern
Iowa, Pennsylvania, Salford
(UK),
Salu Ghotki (Pakistan), Southern Methodist, Virginia, Washington, Wichita State, Yaroslavl
(Russia) and the University of Calgary at Qatar.
Burch's original poems and translations have also been included in books by major publishers such as
Penguin Random House and Harper Collins.
Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your heart sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?
—Excerpt from “Infinity” by Michael R. Burch, written as a teenager
Burch is also the
founder and editor-in-chief of The HyperTexts, a former columnist for the Nashville City Paper,
and, according to Google's rankings, a relevant online publisher of poems about
the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Trail of Tears, Gaza and the Palestinian
Nakba.
Later there’ll be talk of saving whales
over racks of lamb and flambéed snails.
—“After the Poetry Recital” by Michael R. Burch
Burch's poetry has been used in human rights courseware by the
Anti-Defamation League and Amnesty International; published by the UN Refugee
Agency; taught in high schools and colleges;
translated into 20 languages by 27 translators; incorporated into three plays and four operas;
set to music, from swamp blues to classical, 74 times by 34 composers; recited or otherwise employed in 100+
videos; quoted and/or cited in numerous scholarly papers; and used to provide
titles and/or epigraphs to eight authors, two composers and two filmmakers.
A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, poetic interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Because so many of his poems have gone viral, it has been said that Burch is
"ubiquitous on the Internet." Evidence is given in "Career Highlights." A number of Burch's early
poems appear in the career Timeline below, where he
reveals some of the early influences on his poetry such as William Blake, Robert
Burns, e. e. cummings and Emily Dickinson.
If you're an archivist, anthologist, biographer or scholar, there are notes at
the end of this page that may be of interest.
If you're a student or scholar considering a paper, you can find Burch's analysis of some of his most popular poems here: "Auschwitz Rose" Analysis,
"Epitaph" Analysis,
"Something" Analysis,
"Will There Be Starlight" Analysis,
"Sweet
Rose of Virtue" Analysis,
"Davenport Tomorrow" Analysis,
"Neglect" Analysis,
"Passionate One" Analysis,
"Self Reflection" Analysis,
"In The Whispering Night" Analysis,
"Pale Though Her Eyes" Analysis,
"Thin Kin"
Analysis,
The Best Poems of Michael R.
Burch (in his own opinion),
Early
Poems with Analysis,
What is
Poetry?
For information about how he translates, please click here:
Michael R. Burch Translation Notes,
Methods and Credits to Other Translators
"Burch has set the standard for translation of the greats. No contest."
— David
Gosselin, editor of New Lyre and The Chained Muse
"Not enough appreciation has been shown to Michael R. Burch, who will have left
an unparalleled record of living poetry written during his lifetime. His name
will be quoted and remembered long after the names of many poets have been
forgotten.
— Janet Kenny, an accomplished Australian poet
and opera singer
"Michael R. Burch is one of the best living poets, if not the best. His poems
are truly meaningful and exquisitely well-crafted. He is also, without doubt,
the finest translator of poems into English, and his translations of Sappho,
Rilke, Baudelaire, Neruda, Dante, etc. have set the standard for all others to
aspire to." – Martin Mc Carthy, an accomplished Irish poet
More reviews of Michael R. Burch's
original poems and translations
Awards, Achievements and Career Highlights:
• Winner of 71 awards in writing contests including 16 first places.
• Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest.
• Five Pushcart Prize nominations.
• Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The HyperTexts with over 16 million page views.
• Librettist for The Children of Gaza, A Look Into Paradise and
An Ardent Love Affair.
• Former editor of International
Poetry and Translations for Better
Than Starbucks.
• Currently on the board of the International literary journal
Borderless Journal.
• Currently a guest editor for Poetry Nook.
• Burch has served as a judge in poetry
contests for The Lyric, Better Than Starbucks, Poetry Nook and the Net Art
and Poetry Competition (all contests were free to enter and the judges were unpaid).
• Former columnist for The Nashville City Paper until it
ceased publication.
• Marquis Who's Who
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement honoree.
• Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi
Kappa Phi national honor societies.
• Burch is, somewhat ironically, best known for his love poems and horror poems.
• Burch has created new poetic forms, including the "Dabble
Dactyl," the "Less
Heroic Couplet," the "Less
Heroic Limerick," the "Trinelle/Triplenelle," and the "End-First Curtal Sonnet."
He has also created numerous unnamed nonce poetic forms.
TOP 10
• Burch's translation of "Plumegrass
Wilts" by O no Yasumaro is the first poem on the EnglishLiterature.net poem definition
and example page; the poem returned 619K Google results at its peak.
• Burch's translation of "The Love Song of Shu-Sin" is one of the 10 best
ancient love poems according to Literary Devices and was the first poem
listed.
• Burch's translation of “Mirror” by the Kurdish poet Kajal Ahmad was the #1
dark poem according to TCK Publishing, ahead of poems by Blake, Dickinson,
Frost, Neruda and Poe.
• Burch's translation of Ono no Komachi's "I Nodded Off" was
ranked by Hub Pages as the #2 love poem of all time,
ahead of poems by Shakespeare, Burns, Dickinson, Gibran and Neruda.
• "Saving Graces" was used as the second example of an epigram by eNotes Expert
Answers after a famous epigram by Oscar Wilde and before one by Alexander
Pope. Also used by Indus Ladies as an example of the epigram after
three famous ones by Alexander Pope, John Dryden and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Indus Ladies is the largest online community for Indian women, with 1.6
million views per month. Also the #7 epigram on a page of Grace Quotes published
by AZquotes, after epigrams by John Milton and Sir Walter Scott, and before ones
by King Solomon, Pope Francis, Edmund Spenser and Gerard Manley Hopkins. That’s three
top tens by three different raters.
•
"Pale Though Her Eyes" is the #4 monster poem of all time, according to
Aesthetic Poems, after "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Vampire" by
Conrad Aiken, and "Ghost" by Cynthia Huntingon. It is also
one of the eight best vampire poems, along with Burch's poem "Vampires" and
poems by Charles Baudelaire, Ernest Dowson and William Butler Yeats, according
to Pick Me Up Poetry.
• Burch's translation of
"Sweet
Rose of Virtue" by the Scottish poet
William Dunbar was ranked by Poem Analysis as one of the top 10 Romantic poems
of all time, and as one of the 10 most beautiful Valentine’s Day Poems of all
time; Poem Analysis is also using Burch's translation for their analysis of the
poem); Story Mirror ranked Burch's translation in its top 20 sonnets of all time.
• Burch's translation/interpretation of Sappho fragment 156 ("Scents/Scents") is
a top 10 short poem according to The Swiveler.
•
"A True Story" is the #10 baseball poem of all time, according to SonicSpot.
• "See" is a top 10 short poem according to Short Quotes and Poems, and
a top 100 love poem according to the Love Me Knots anthology.
TOP 25
•
"Thin Kin" is the #11 monster poem of all time, according to Aesthetic
Poems.
• "C'mon lefties!" is a top 12 Trump joke according to CNN.com.
• "Solicitation" is the #13 monster poem of all time, according to Aesthetic
Poems.
• "Einstein the frizzy-haired" was selected as one of “16 Funny and Famous
Limerick Examples” by Smart Blogger.
• "Nod to the Master" was included in “Top 17 Very Witty Quotes” by
AZquotes
along with quotes by Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison and Groucho Marx.
("If every witty things that's said was true / Oscar Wilde, the would worship you!")
• At one time "Bible Libel" appeared in "Top 17 Very Witty Quotes" but
AZquotes
may have a limit of one per author. ("If God / is good / half the Bible / is
libel.") This epigram was written by Burch circa age
11 to 13 and once appeared on 78K web pages according to Google results. "Bible
Libel" also appears in "Boloji Superb Quotes" along with famous quotes by
Montaigne, Shakespeare, Twain and Wilde.
• "Frail Envelope of Flesh" is a top 20 short poem according to Reimage Plus.
• Burch's translation/interpretation of Sappho fragment 42 ("Eros") is a top 25
quote according to AZquotes.
• Burch's translation of "Grasses wilt / the braking locomotive / grinds to a
halt" by Yamaguchi Seishi is one of 40 haiku everyone should read, according to
Reedsy Discovery.
FIRSTS AND FOREMOSTS
• "Goddess" was the first poem published by Romantics
Quarterly and Burch had the first five poems in the first issue of RQ.
• Burch also had the first five poems in the first issue of New Lyre.
• "Ophelia" was the first poem published by The New Stylus and Burch had the first
seven poems in the first issue of TNS.
• Burch's original poem "Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address" appears in the Library
of Congress as part of the Holocaust poetry anthology Blood to Remember.
• "First They Came for the Muslims" was published by
Amnesty International in its Words That Burn anthology and was also
published by The Hindu and other major newspapers; at one time the poem
returned an astonishing 823K Google results.
• BBC Radio 3 published
Burch's translations of 14 poems by the immortal Sappho of Lesbos which were
recited by the actresses Diana Quick and Sophie Ward.
• "Willy Nilly" is the third example of the term "willy nilly" after ones
by Shakespeare and Robert Frost at LiteraryDefinition.net.
• Burch had three poems cited in Vocabulary Richness in English Poetry
(Contemporary Literature Press), alongside poets like Shakespeare, Dickinson,
Frost, Whitman and Yeats.
MOST-READ POEMS
• "First They Came for the Muslims" was published by
Amnesty International in its Words That Burn anthology and was also
published by The Hindu and other major newspapers; at one time the poem
returned an astonishing 823K Google results.
• "Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" at one time returned 92K Google results.
• "Bible Libel," an epigram written by Burch as a preteen, at one time returned
78K Google results.
• Burch's epigram "A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the
others crazy?" at one time returned 34K Google results and is now being used to
sell t-shirts and coffee mugs! The quote went viral after Pharrell Williams
retweeted it.
• A translation Burch did in his teens, "Elegy for a little girl, lost," at one time returned
21K Google results.
• "Murder Most Fowl" at one time returned 14K Google results.
• "Ordinary Love" at one time returned 9K Google results.
• "The Effects of Memory" at one time returned 7K Google results.
• "Observance," a poem Burch wrote as a teenager, at one time returned
4K Google results.
• More than 70 poems written by Burch in his teens have been published by
literary journals and several have been set to music by composers, including
"Earthbound," "Frail Envelope of Flesh," "The Last Enchantment," "Lay Down Your
Arms," "Moon Lake," "Styx" and "Will There Be Starlight."
ACCORDING TO AI
The best poems of Michael R. Burch according to Google's version of AI include
"Ali's Song," "Auschwitz Rose," "The Pain of Love," "The Effects of Memory,"
"Passionate One," "Shadows" and "In the Whispering Night." The last two poems
were written by Burch as a teenager.
OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS
• Burch is one of the world's most-published poets, with over 9,000 publications, including poems that have gone viral (this does not include self-published writings). Some
of his poems have been published multiple times; the number of individual poems
published was 2,021 as of late fall 2023.
• Burch has been published by hundreds of literary journals, magazines, newspapers, news
services and sundry publications, from A-Z, including American Dissident, Amnesty International's Words That Burn,
Angle (Australia), Anti-Defamation League, Author's
Guild "Fourteen Days" Anthology, Bewildering Stories, Black Kos, Black Medina, Borderless Journal (Singapore), ByLine, Cafe Dissensus (India), The Chained Muse, The Chariton Review, The Chimaera,
Daily Kos, Daily Sun (Bangladesh), De Volksrant (Holland), Dissident Voice, The Eclectic Muse (Canada), The Ekphrastic
Review, Eurasia Review, Everyman's Library (Penguin Books), First Things, The Flea, Graeco Music (Greece), The Guardian (UK), Haiku Universe,
Hibiscus (India), The Hindu (India), Iambs & Trochees, Irish Blog, Jewish Letter (Russia), Journal of the Arts & Humanities, Kashmir News, La Luce Che Non Muore
(Italy), LIGHT, Lighten Up Online, Linh Vu (Vietnam), The Lyric, Measure, Nashville City Paper, Nebo, The New Formalist, New Lyre, Opera News, Pennsylvania Review, Poem Today, Poet Lore, Poezzi (Romania), Potcake Chapbooks (UK), Pride Magazine (Nigeria), Promosaik (Denmark/Germany), Qingdao News (East Timor), Reader's Digest (website),
Romantics Quarterly, Southwestern Review, Sagar Behere (Sweden), Sans Titre (France), Snakeskin (UK), Sonety
(Czechoslovakia), Sri Lanka Guardian, Stermez
(Macedonia), Sydney Review of Books, The Telegraph (India), TIME, UNHCR (the UN refugee agency), Ulita (Russia), Unlikely Stories, USA Today, Uyghur Times, Verse Libre,
Verse Weekly, Voices Israel, Washington Post, Whale (Tonga), Writer’s Digest-The Year’s Best Writing, Writer's Gazette, Writers' Journal, Xymphora,
YouTube (125+), Zen Haiku, and many more.
PEACE ACTIVISM
• The Anti-Defamation League used Burch's Fadwa Tuqan "Enough of Me" translation
in a series of seminars.
• Burch is a longtime peace activist and the author of the Burch-Elberry Peace
Initiative, also known as the Fair Courts Resolution (FCR).
• On October 21, 2010, Burch presented the Burch-Elberry Peace Initiative to
Aziz Mekouar, the Moroccan Ambassador to the United States, at a reception held
in the Grand Ballroom of Nashville's Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel.
• Theo Horesh discussed the Fair Courts Resolution in his book The
Holocausts We All Deny (pg 174-175).
Books (9):
Violets for Beth
(White Violet Press, 2012)
O, Terrible Angel
(Ancient Cypress Press, 2013)
Auschwitz Rose remains in the chute but has been long delayed.
Editor of
Have Pool Cue Will Travel by Mark C. O'Brien.
Editor of Book of Desire
by Martin Mc Carthy and also wrote the Introduction.
Translator of Hebrew poems by Adi Wolfson, the 2017 winner of Israel's
prestigious Levi Eshkol Prize for Literature, in two books: I Am Your Father
and Oikos.
Editor of The Fascism This Time by Theo Horesh.
Benjamin Jones used extensive excerpts from a Burch article in his book
Pete Rose Unforgiven Forever and credited Burch prominently on the
book's second page.
Anthologies and Other Poetry Collections (35): Words That Burn (Amnesty International),
Blood to Remember (Holocaust poetry),
Uyghur Poems, Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, Amerikai költok a
második ("American Poets at the Turn of the Second
Millennium"), Famous Poets &
Poems, Life & Legends, Writer's Digest—The Year's Best Writing 2003, Potcake
Chapbooks, The Bible of Hell, How
Sweet the Night (CD), Velvet Avalanche, Love Me Knots
(love poems),
Crimson Leaves (love/romance), Voices Israel, Washing the Color of Water Golden (Hurricane
Katrina), The Best of The Eclectic Muse, Poems for Big Kids,
A Bouquet of Poems for children of all ages, Liberty's Vigil
(Occupy Wall Street), A Fancy of Formalities, Captivating Poetry, Monalisa
No Longer Smiles published by Borderless Journal, WORDS going
places, Troubles of the World (an online anthology with poems by
Dickinson, Frost, Yeats, et al), Down in the Dirt 2025 Datebook
("Epitaph for a Ukrainian Child" was on the first page, January 1), Sanctuary, Christmas at Spillwords, and several other poetry collections.
Burch's translations of "My Feelings" by Dolqun Yasin and "Traces" by Abdurehim
Otkur are scheduled to published in Uyghur Poems,
an anthology edited by Aziz Isa Elkun (Everyman’s Library, Penguin Books/Random
House).
Burch has six poems scheduled to be published in the anthology Crimson
Leaves: Celebrating Romance, curated and edited John Donovan Lambert, who
wrote in his introduction that he "searched the world for the very best love
poems." Burch's original poem "Let Me Give Her Diamonds" appeared on the opening
pages after "How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and "Meeting at
Night" by Robert Browning. In his Acknowledgments, Lambert thanked
"Michael R. Burch, for his poems and translations" and went on to say, "I would
also like to thank Mike Burch for his kind friendship and camaraderie in our
correspondence ranging over many topics about poetry, from the industry in
general to details as fine as whether an additional syllable in a particular
line of a particular poem would enhance or diminish the meter of the poem."
Burch had six poems in the bilingual Hungarian poetry anthology Amerikai
költok a második ("American Poets at the Turn of the Second Millennium"),
which has been described by reviewer András Tarnóc as Dr. István Bagi’s "ambitious effort focusing on the lyrical production of the past two decades in
the United States." According to Tarnóc this effort "enriches the discipline of
American Studies in Hungary, and contributes to translation studies as well."
Dr. Bagi chose 25 American poets to translate, including such well-known names
as former poet laureates Billy Collins, Louise Gluck, Charles Simic and James
Tate. Pulitzer winners included Gluck, Simic, Tate, Stephen Dunn, Jorie Graham
and Sharon Olds. Other familiar names were Wendell Berry, Mark Doty, Erica Jong
and David Lehman. Burch was the only poet with six poems in the anthology.
Reviews, Literary Criticism and Commentary:
• "One can actually feel the intensity of emotion bleeding through the pages."
(Jim Dunlap, poet)
• "That poem ['Epitaph for a Palestinian Child'] made me feel cold, like a ghost
touched me!" (Maida Mohammed-Brown, poet and peace activist)
• "Very, very touching, like suffocating my chest." (Tri Raden Raden, commenting
on the same poem)
• "Your love poems to your wife—how beautiful, how beautiful—even a poet's word
fail me." (Helen Bar-Lev, artist, poet and editor of the Voices
Israel anthologies)
• "Your contributions are a touchstone for me. (Vera Ignatowitsch, poet and editor of
Better Than Starbucks)
• "The poems you sent me are astonishingly beautiful. I really love them." (Karen
Shenfield, poet)
• "This is a truly magnificent poem ['Love Has a Southern Flavor']." (Dr. Joseph
S. Salemi, poet and editor of Trinacria)
"I am discovering Michael R. Burch for the very first time, a good five years
after this splendid post [Burch's translation of 'How Long the Night' on the
Society of Classical Poets website], and can only say that what I am
finding here and there on the web is superlatively good, some of the finest
lyric poetry I have ever had the privilege of reading. And people know that I'm
the sniffiest, most unforgiving snob that ever lived. But this is classic verse
such as the world has always understood it." (Joseph Charles Mackenzie,
poet, in a
post on the Society of Classical Poets website)
"This one poem [Burch's ars poetica poem 'Poetry'] surpasses any other
contemporary I have read. This is the restoration of la poésie classique!
... This is classic poetry in the grand manner!" (Joseph Charles Mackenzie, in
two posts on the New Lyre website on Dec. 21, 2020)
"English lacks words strong enough to properly praise his poem [Burch's poem
'Poetry']." (Edward C. Hayes II, poet, in a July 3, 2021 post on the New
Lyre
website)
"Your poem 'Poetry' is really quite something ... [it] has a Promethean quality
..." (David B. Gosselin, editor of The Chained Muse and
New Lyre)
David Gosselin has called Burch an "American Goethe" and wrote a review
titled "Our Very Own English Goethe" in which he said: "Burch may rightly be
called our very own English Goethe. He is able to craft poems of exquisite
beauty and sublime sensuousness, while using only a few lines or stanzas, in
many cases. When we read Burch’s poems—even his shorter strophic pieces, of
which there are many—we encounter the kinds of beautiful sentiments and enticing
ironies, which in the words of Robert Frost leave 'An immortal wound.'"
"Not many poets in this current era can write great love poems, but Michael R.
Burch certainly can, based on the evidence in Violets for Beth.
All the poems included here are passionate, lyrical, musical—and, at times,
feel as if they are burning on the page. A truly stunning collection of love
poems!" (Martin Mc Carthy, an accomplished Irish poet)
"In this collection, the poet Michael R. Burch writes with love, passion and
affection about the human, earthly angels who sometimes inhabit our harsh, real
worlds of pain, and somehow manage—through constant small acts of kindness and
caring—to make them more tolerable and wondrous than they actually are. O, Terrible
Angel is no less than passionate, realistic love poetry at its very best. I
highly recommend it." (Martin Mc Carthy)
Michael R. Burch's Violets For Beth is an exceptional collection,
compromised mostly of formalist poems that seem so fluid and natural that it's
easy to forget they are rhymed and metered. Mr. Burch's technical virtuosity is
not what makes this collection memorable, however. These poems, all of them,
possess an extraordinary emotional depth and tenderness, and resonate in the
heart as well as in the mind. Consider the sonnet "Water and Gold," one of my
favorite pieces in a cornucopia of gems. The poem is flawless from start to
finish, but its exquisite concluding couplet is positively breathtaking:
"I dreamed you gave me water of your lips,
Then sealed my tomb with golden hieroglyphs."
There are no subpar poems anywhere here, and more than a few would truly be
worthy of Yeats or Rilke in their prime. Other favorites of mine include
"Redolence" and the gorgeous "Infinity." Mike Burch is a true poet in the very
best sense of the word, and this haunting little book is a treasure to be read,
reread, and savored for generations to come. (Robert Lavett Smith, an
accomplished American poet)
For more reviews of the poetry of Michael R. Burch, including full-length
reviews, podcasts and interviews, please click here:
Reviews of Books and Individual
Poems by Michael R. Burch.
Magazines (22): TIME, The Oldie (UK),
Writer’s Digest The Year’s Best Writing (2003), Journal of the Arts
and Humanities, Writer’s Journal, Writer’s
Gazette, ByLine, First Things, The American Dissident, Poet’s Forum Magazine,
FreeXpression (Australia), The Alberta Science Teacher (Canada),
Certification Magazine, Emotions Literary Magazine, Verses Magazine, GloMag
(India), MahMag (Iran), Ancient Heart Magazine (UK),
Boston Poetry Magazine, Poetry Renewal Magazine, Silver Stork Magazine, Dusk &
Shiver Magazine
Podcasts (including at least 14 original poems and translations): Burch's original poetry and translations have been featured
in podcasts by The Burnt Notebook (Yosa Buson translations), The
New Lyre ("The Timeless Poetry of Michael R. Burch" with nine poems recited
and discussed), and a Lusty Literature podcast (to be recorded at the
University of Virginia by Julia Robertson) with "The Deflowering," "An Ancient
Egyptian Love Lyric" and "Are You the Thief?"
Also, "I, too, have a dream" was read during a podcast by Mitali Chakravarty,
the editor of Borderless Journal.
Librettos/Operas (4): The Children of Gaza with music by composer
Eduard de Boer; A Look Into Paradise with music by Eduard de Boer (an opera in
one act based on Jura Soyfer’s play Der Lechner-Edi schaut ins Paradis);
An Ardent Love Affair with music by Eduard de Boer (a Cantata for
tenor, baritone and symphonic wind orchestra inspired by the Rockefeller
Foundation's scenario LOCK STEP, which envisions a world of tighter
top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited
innovation and growing citizen pushback); Summoning the Spirit: Poems of
Komachi with music by William Salmon (a multimedia opera based on the Noh
play Sotoba Komachi performed by Open Gate Theatre and filmed in the
Pasadena Arroyo).
Oratorios (1): Eduard de Boer will be using Burch-written
lyrics for the fifth movement of Oratorium Toward a Golden Future,
an oratorio he's writing for soloists, choir and wind orchestra, on commission
from the Dutch Fund for Podium Arts. The project has an October 24, 2024
deadline.
Titles and/or Epigraphs (12):
"Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" was used as the lead epigraph in Genocide:
A Political Discretion by Nagendram Braveen and published on Academia.edu.
"Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" was used to lead off an article in Eurasia
Review by K. M. Seethi, a director, dean and professor at Mahatma Gandhi
University in Kerala.
The Australian poet Felicity Plunkett took the
title of her poetry collection A Kinder Sea from Burch's translation of
an epigram attributed to Plato and credited Burch in her book.
Julian Smith took the title of his collection of short fiction,
The World of Dew, from Burch's translation of an Issa poem.
Burch's translation of Su Shi’s rose/candle poem was used as an epigraph for his
poem "the unsunken arose" by Dave Garbutt.
Burch's translation of Issa’s "world of dew" haiku was used by Julian Smith as
the epigraph to his short story collection The World of Dew and Other
Stories.
Burch's translation of Ouchi Yoshitaka’s "dewdrops" haiku was quoted in The
Last Dead Man by Conor Barnes.
The composer
Daniel Brinsmead used A Kinder Sea as the title of one of his
compositions.
The composer Joshua C. DeLozier used Burch's translation of the
Issa poem
"Admiring Flowers" for the title of one of his compositions and to accompany
the music.
Zander Smith, a
maker of documentary films, intends to title his forthcoming documentary of the
plight of Uyghur refugees The Grave Is Wide after Burch's original poem
"Epitaph for a Uyghur Child."
Award-winning director John Flynn published Burch’s translation of “How Long the
Night” with his short film of the same title.
Terry Trafton used Burch’s translation of “The Seikilos Epitaph” as an epigraph
in his introduction to the short story collection
Night Fevers.
Poems Set to Music and/or Interpreted as Music (74 songs,
instrumental interpretations and/or other uses, by 34 composers):
• "Lay Down Your Arms" by the Brazilian musician Eduardo Agni
• A musical interpretation of the Sappho translation
"Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell
lyre" by Ahornberg
• "Epitaph for a Homeless Child" was
published by Armand Amar with his composition "Home"
• The lyrics of Children of Gaza
by composer Eduard de Boer including "Frail Envelope of Flesh," "Mother's
Smile," "Where Does the Butterfly Go?" and six other Burch poems
• A Look Into Paradise with music by Eduard de Boer, an opera in
one act based on Jura Soyfer’s play Der Lechner-Edi schaut ins Paradis.
• An Ardent Love Affair with music by Eduard de Boer, a Cantata for
tenor, baritone and symphonic wind orchestra inspired by the Rockefeller
Foundation's scenario LOCK STEP, which envisions a world of tighter
top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited
innovation and growing citizen pushback.
•
The fifth movement of Oratorium Toward a Golden
Future, an oratorio by Eduard de Boer for soloists, choir and wind
orchestra, on commission from the Dutch Fund for Podium Arts.
•
Eduard de Boer: orchestral versions of the nine poems of Children of Gaza
• "I Pray Tonight" by composer Mark Buller
• "Willy Nilly" and "Indestructible, for Johnny Cash" by Gary Deslaurier of the
swamp-blues band Old Dog Daddy & The Dagnabbits
• Joshua C. DeLozier used Burch's translation of
the Issa poem
"Admiring Flowers" for his title and to accompany the music
• Native American translations by
composer Paula Downes
• "Cherokee Travelers' Blessing II" by Patricia Falanga
• Poems to be selected by Jerry Gerber (forthcoming)
• Gladsome Throng combined bits from Burch's
translations of Chaucer’s “Merciless Beauty” and “Rejection” to come up
with the title and apparently the concept for their composition “Merciless
Chain.”
• "Will There Be Starlight,"
"The Tapestry of Leaves," "Moon Lake," "I Pray Tonight,"
"Such Tenderness," "Midnight Lullaby," "Sing for the Cool
Night," "We Came Together," "The Singer," "Liebes-Lied,"
"Moments," "Fascination with Light," "We Came Together, Holding Hands,"
"Distances," "Unsaid," "Let It Be" and "The Effects of Memory" by
the award-winning New Zealand composer
David Hamilton
• "For a Ukrainian Child, with Butterflies" by Pauli Hansen
• Burch's translation of "The Song of Amergin" was to
be included in a book of musical compositions by the Irish composer Anne Harper.
• A cello interpretation of "The Wife's Lament"
by Jenny Jackson
• "For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies" by Estonian
composer Helena Loorents of Mona da Vinci
• "The Blobfish" by Mariah McDonald
and Sam Perrott
• "She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful" by Carmen Garcia Perez
• Burch's translation of the Ber Horvitz poem "Der Himmel" ("The
Heavens") by composer Ella Roberts
• "I Pray Tonight" by Kyle Scheuing
• "Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust" by Sloane Simon
• "Earthbound" by Cedomir Stanojevic and the Serbian band About Lorca
(forthcoming)
• "Styx" was set to music by the Russian composer Ekaterina Steppe aka Kotik Ptic.
• "Indestructible, for Johnny Cash" by Mike Strand
• John Sturt
requested permission to use Burch's translation of "Deor's Lament" to help
audiences follow the Old English/Anglo-Saxon lyrics which he set to music, and
also for his dissertation on his composition.
• Voices of Hope choir recital of my translation of
Fadwa Tuqan's "Enough for Me"
• "I
Have a Yong Suster" by Sigrid Vipa in a YouTube song with a 12-string Celtic
harp
Voices of Hope choir recital of my translation of Fadwa Tuqan's "Enough for Me"
• Burch's translation of "Near Sainthood" by Mirza
Ghalib was published by Unself Yourself on YouTube and closes the video
• "Caedmon's Hymn" by composer Dawn Walters
• "A Kinder Sea" by Devan Wardrop-Saxton
• "How
Long the Night" by composer Seth Wright
• "How Long the Night" by the Houghton College
Greatbatch School of Music in its "Star Wars: the Recomposition"
• "How Long the Night" by the rock band
Illusory in "Pedestal II: The Isle of Shadows"
• Zou Meicheng set
"Autumn Day" to music.
• "The Last
Enchantment" was musically interpreted in a Martins Garden SoundCloud piece.
• "Stonehenge" was musically interpreted in a Martins Garden SoundCloud piece as
"Where the Druids Stood."
Performances of Note with Links when available:
This multimedia opera incorporates Burch's translations of the poetry
of Ono no Komachi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnoa5a7fTlg
The song cycle Children of Gaza, a potential opera if the money ever
materializes,
has been performed at multiple venues in Europe by the Palestinian soprano Dima
Bawab, accompanied on the piano by composer Eduard de Boer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlqOsaJGhiQ&t=279s
Composer Mark Buller
used the lyrics of "I Pray Tonight" in his musical composition
Erasure,
a song cycle for baritone, clarinet and piano on the theme of gun violence (sung
at minute 9:15 of the hyperlinked performance). "I
Pray Tonight" was later performed as "Elegy" at the Hurricane Harvey Relief
Concert by the Apollo Chamber Players in partnership with Musiqa Houston and
Jazz Forever @ the MATCH (Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston), on September
8, 2017. All proceeds (over $8,000) went towards the Hurricane Harvey Relief
Funds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKylMoh6kaM
"Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust" was set to music and used in an original
composition by Sloane Simon, a talented 14-year-old Jewish-American girl, after
the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Sloane later appeared on American Idol 2021
and made it to Hollywood.
This is a cantata by composer Eduard de Boer with Burch's lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG1eq8zA1iI&t=106s
Ben E. Smith reads three of Burch's poems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJOXsoNaaUU
"For a Ukrainian Child with Butterflies" was set to music by Pauli Hansen and performed by a choir in a concert at the Nordic House in Torshavn, Faroe Islands.
https://youtu.be/-F_52RI0uAk
"The Tapestry of Leaves" was set to music by the
award-winning New Zealand composer David Hamilton and performed
by a choir in Taiwan in April 2021, as part of the song cycle Childhood.
"Night Watch" with music by David Hamilton was third in the mixed category of
the 2021 Fifth Choral Composition Competition sponsored by the International
Federation for Choral Music (IFCM). There were 93 total contest entries from
around the globe.
"We Came Together" was performed by the Pakuranga
Choral Society on Nov. 12, 2022 at the Saturday civic/ecumenical service at
Howick’s All Saints Anglican Church as part of Howick’s 175th anniversary
events.
"Moments," "Fascination with Light" and "Midnight Lullaby" were set to music by
David Hamilton and performed by the Jade String Quartet with a mezzo-soprano on
February 17, 2024.
The rose in the video below was
painted by the poet/artist Mary Rae, and the video was created by Lillian Y.
Wong, so this was a collaboration with two talented artists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-oBMn32vaw&t=31s
"Ali's Song," a tribute to Muhammad Ali, was turned into a video by Lillian Y.
Wong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHOs4kFVj24
"At Wilfred Owen's Grave" was turned into a video by Lillian Y. Wong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrdPQob6tQ&t=5s
"Something," a poem for the children of the Holocaust and Palestinian Nakba, was
turned into a video by Lillian Y. Wong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVtL3WpFoOA&t=103s
"Survivors," a 9-11 poem, was turned into a video by Lillian Y. Wong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7BP3sYjmTY&t=106s
"Are You the Thief" was turned into a short, sweet and cute video by Reaction
Romance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK7zcJrQOtM
The nine poems of Children of Gaza set to orchestral music by composer
Eduard de Boer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm3LeazwLto
Theater (3): Poems and translations by Burch have been included
in the following operas, plays and stage productions: Lysistrata by
Aristophanes (translation of "Lament to the Spirit of War" by Enheduanna,
incorporated by Flavia D'Avila, director, Edinburgh, Scotland); translations of
poems by Ono no Komachi were incorporated as a focal point into the mixed media play
Summoning the Spirit: Poems of Komachi created
by playwright William Salmon; A Look Into Paradise (a play-based opera with
music by composer Eduard de Boer).
Visual Art (31): Burch's poems have been incorporated into and/or
coupled with works of visual art by Mahryn Rose Barron (Burch's translations of
Sappho 147), Marie Bortolotto (Takaha Shugyo "Rowboat"
translation), Cultura Collectiva (Burch's translation of Sappho 155 paired with
erotic paintings), Franco Decker Photography (“The Secret of Her Clothes”), Peter Delahaye ("Dawn" excerpts,
forthcoming), the D.B. Dowd Tribute for artist Noah MacMillan (published
“Orpheus” with visual art), Malika Favre ("Les Bijoux" in Kama Sutra A-Z),
Murals by Georgeta (Burch’s translation of Martial’s elegy for the child Erotion
plus the original poems "I Pray Tonight, for the Parkland Survivors," "Epitaph for a
Parkland Student" and "For a Parkland Student, with Butterflies"), Jordi Fornies
("Piercing the Shell"), Autumn H. Jackson (“The Secret of Her
Clothes”), Debra Jayne Photography ("Something"), Wouter Vande Koot (three paintings with titles
taken from the Burch translations "Oft in My Thought," "He Came Also as Still"
and "Whan the Turuf is Thy Tower"), Raoul Martinez (Trump “Toupee the
Price” done in calligraphy), Dodie Messer Meeks (art for "The Desk" and "The Aery Faery
Princess" in A Bouquet of Poems for Children of All Ages), Craig
Mokhiber (photograph paired with Burch's translation of “This Distant Light” by
Walid Khazindar), Mary Rae (cover
art for Auschwitz
Rose and O, Terrible Angel), Saatchi Art Gallery (four Basho
translations and the original haiku "Water Breaks"), Brenda Levy Tate (cover art
for Violets for
Beth), Patricia Watwood (Burch's translation of Rumi's "The Field")
and Loy Yan Ling (Euphamorics clay sculptures paired with Burch’s
translation of Paul Valery’s “Graveyard by the Sea”).
Textbooks: Several Burch poems and translations have been included in
high school and college courseware, including a high school textbook published
by National Geographic Learning and a book titled Reading Medieval English
Literature published by Yaroslavl State University (Russia) with Burch's
translations of "Deor's Lament" and "The Wife's Lament."
Letters: Hundred of Burch's letters, articles, opinion pieces
and poems have been published by
major newspapers, news services and magazines which include TIME, USA Today,
The Guardian (UK), The Hindu (India), The
Telegraph (India), Daily Indonesia, Daily Sun (Bangladesh),
Eurasia Review, De Volksrant (Holland), Promosaik
(Denmark/Germany), Uyghur Times, Pride Magazine (Nigeria), Qingdao News (East Timor),
The News International (Pakistan), Kashmir News, Sri
Lanka Guardian, Colombo Telegraph (Sri Lanka),
CNN.com,
BBC Radio 3, Daily Kos, Black Kos, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Tennessean,
The Nashville City Paper, The
Knoxville News Sentinel, The Columbus Dispatch, Amnesty International, The
Anti-Defamation League, UNHCR (the UN refugee agency), European Union Erasmus
Project (for exceptional students), American Dissident, Dissident Voice, Writer’s Digest-The Year’s Best Writing, Writer's Gazette, Writers' Journal,
ByLine, and many others.
Literary Journals: Angle, Asses of Parnassus, The Aurorean,
Better Than Starbucks, Black Medina, Blue Unicorn, Borderless Journal, Boston Poetry Magazine, Brief Poems, Byline,
The Chained Muse, The
Chariton Review, The Chimaera, Contemporary Rhyme, The Eclectic Muse, Erosha,
First Things, The Flea, Icon, Journal of the Arts and Humanities, Light Quarterly, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric,
Measure, Nebo, New Lyre, Penny Dreadful, Poem Today, Poet Lore, Poetry Super Highway, The
Raintown Review, Romantics Quarterly, Southwest Review, Writer's Digest,
Writer’s Gazette, Writer’s Journal, Unlikely Stories, Verse Weekly, and
hundreds more.
Human Rights: Burch's poems and translations have been
published and/or used in human rights activism by Amnesty International ("First
They Came for the Muslims"), the UN Refugee Agency aka UNHCR ("Neglect"), and
the Anti-Defamation League in partnership with the Aspen Institute (Burch's
translation of "Enough for Me" by Fadwa Tuqan).
Poems published by Newspapers and News Services: The Hindu
("First they came for the Muslims"), The Telegraph ("Peace
Prayer" cited), Thanal Online ("Brother Iran"),
BBC Radio 3 (several Sappho translations), The Brunei Times ("For a
Child of Gaza, with Butterflies"), Germany's ProMosaik (interview and
Gaza poems), Holland's de Volkskrant ("Auschwitz Rose" and "Neglect"),
South Africa’s New Age Newspaper ("Mandela!"), Nigeria's Vanguard
Newspaper ("Neglect"), Kashmir News ("Epitaph"),
Sri Lanka's Colombo Telegraph, Sunday Observer and Tamil
Free Thoughts ("Epitaph"), Pakistan's
The News International (translation of "Speech of the Red Indian" by
Mahmoud Darwish), Gabon's Aiboja News (Sappho
translation), Nashville's The Contributor ("For a
Homeless Child, with Butterflies"), The Columbus Dispatch ("Pity Clarity"),
The Seattle Times ("Relativity"),
The
Lewiston Tribune ("Ass-tronomical," a limerick about Albert Einstein
and relativity), European Tribune (Who, US?), Sindhu News (14 poems),
Stockport Post (multiple haiku and micro poems), Manchester
Post, Trafford Post, Cheshire Post, Salford Post, Burnage Post, Heatons
Post, Edgeley Post, Bolton Post, Tameside Post
Quora: On Quora where he writes primarily about
poetry, politics, religion and sports, Burch has over 60 million page views,
400K upvotes, 150K comments, 25K shares and 10K
followers. He has 50+ Quora articles with over 100K views, including: Bizarre
Bible Verses (840K), Was Babe Ruth Black? (811K), Reading the Bible
Cover-to-Cover (717K), The Notorious Tallulah Bankhead (606K), Where is Jesus in
Actual History? (600K), Kobe vs. Clyde (535K),
Trump's Exaggerated Height (341K), Trump
Staffers
(315K), Lara Trump's 81 States Identified (304K), Steve Garvey (290K), Trump Post-Presidency (287K),
Babe Ruth's Fastball (265K), Sandy Koufax (260K), Sins of Lucifer (254K), Melania
Hand-Slapping (253K), Limericks (71K), Poetry Couplets (39K), Rock Poetry (39K),
Laughter Similes and Metaphors (22K), Oral Poems (20K), My Best Poems (16K),
Scales of Justice Poems (10K), Pablo Neruda
Translations (9K), "Chit Chat" (8.8K), "Something" (8K), "Winter"
(6K), Naughty Limericks (4.9K),
"Abide" (4.2K), "I Pray Tonight" (3.7K), Poems about Adam and Eve (3.4K), "Ivy"
after Pablo Neruda (2.9K), "Chrysalis" (2.7K), Song Lyrics by Michael R. Burch
(2.7K), "The Better Man" (2.6K), "Sometimes the Dead" (2.6K), "something of
sunshine attracted my i" (2.6K, a poem Burch wrote in high school), "Flight"
(2.6K), Rumi Translations (1.6K), "Having Touched You" (1.6K, a poem Burch wrote
in high school), Epigrams III (1.5K), Epigrams I (1.4K), Ancient Mayan
Translations (1.3K), Charles Baudelaire Translations (1.2K), Poems For and After
William Blake (1.2K), Urdu Translations (1.2K), Oldest Haiku (1.1K), "Polish"
(1.1K), Gaza Poems (1.1K), "The Making of a Poet" (1K, poems Burch wrote in high
school), "She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful" (1K), "Polish Those Talons!"
(1K), "These Hallowed Halls" (1K, a poem Burch wrote as a college freshman),
Poems About Flight (1K), "Laughter's Cry" (1K)
Viral Poems with Google results/viewable pages: "First
They Came for the Muslims" (823K/287), "Epitaph"
(92K/317), "Bible Libel" (78K/199), Einstein "Hazy/Crazy" epigram (34K/271),
"Elegy for a little girl, lost" (21K/315), Sappho "Your lips were made to mock"
translation (20K/135), "Survivors" (12.1K/75), Sappho "Eros harrows my heart" translation (3.6K/319),
"The Harvest of Roses" (3.6K), Bertolt Brecht "The
Burning of the Books" translation (1.5K/285), "In the
Whispering Night" (1.6K), "Something"
(1.5K/323), "The Greatest of These" (1.5K), "Frail Envelope of Flesh" (1.4K/311),
"Safe Harbor" (1.4K/304), "Piercing the Shell (1.4K), Robert Burns "To a Mouse" translation (1.4K/270),
"Mother's Smile" (1.3K/312), "Autumn Conundrum" (1.2K/322), "Haunted" (1.2K),
"How Long the Night" translation (1.2K/322), "I Pray Tonight" (1.1K), Yamaguchi
Seishi "Where Does the Butterfly Go?" (1.3K), "Grasses wilt" translation
(1.1K/200), Glaucus "Does my soul abide" translation
(1K/189), William
Dunbar "Sweet Rose of Virtue" translation (731/232), Sappho "That enticing
girl's clinging dresses" translation (685/90), Plato "A kinder sea" translation
(647/267), "Child of 9-11 (645/145), "Like Angels, Winged" (585/191), "Saving
Graces" (568/244), "Einstein the frizzy-haired" limerick (549/145), "Neglect"
(540/114), "How Long the Night" translation (529/227), Basho "Awed jonquil"
translation (495/176), "Auschwitz Rose"
(435/156), Matsuo Basho "Kiri tree" haiku translation (413/180), Takaha Shugyo
"Fallen camellias" translation (363/147), Matsuo Basho "Frog leaps" haiku
translation (346/183), "escape!" (336/192), Fukuda Chiyo-ni "Ah butterfly"
translation (292/136), "Pale Though Her Eyes" (276/117), Vera Pavlova
"Shattered" translation (253/103), Sappho "She keeps her scents" translation
(233/62), Miklos Radnoti "Postcard 4" translation (232/101), O no Yasumaro
"Plumegrass wilts" translation (206/123), "Ali's Song" (191/112), "Nun Fun Undone" (169/95),
Ko Un "Speechless" translation (149/79)
NOTE: Google results fluctuate and the figures above are merely "snapshots"
taken at random times. The second figure is the number of individual pages that
can be accessed and viewed directly via Google.
Most Popular Online Articles:
Early Poems;
Rejection Slips;
Epigrams and Quotes;
No Hell in the Bible;
The
Most Beautiful Poems in the English Language;
The Best Erotic Poems;
The Best Limericks
Most Published and Awarded Poems:
"Epitaph," "Frail Envelope of Flesh,"
"Tremble,"
"See," "Ali's Song,"
"Ordinary Love,"
"Isolde's Song,"
"In Flight Convergence,"
"Neglect,"
"Something,"
"Auschwitz Rose," "Abide," "Bible Libel," "Child of 9-11," "Flight
93," "Salat Days," "Passionate
One," "Redolence," "Love Has a Southern Flavor," "Discrimination"
The epigram below has been published by AZquotes as one of the "Top 17 Very
Witty Quotes" along with quotes by Shakespeare, Groucho Marx and other
luminaries. The epigram has also been published, along with
hundreds of other Burch epigrams, by CrackSpy, FamousQuotes, GreatSayings,
Idlehearts, JarOfQuotes, LetUsQuote, MoreFamousQuotes, MyQuotes, PictureQuotes,
QuoteFancy, QuoteMaster, and other quote sites.
Nod to the Master
by Michael R. Burch
If every witty thing that’s said were true,
Oscar Wilde, the world would worship You!
Most Popular
Translations, Interpretations and Modernizations: Basho, Bertolt Brecht, Robert Burns, Caedmon,
Paul Celan, Thomas Chatterton,
Geoffrey Chaucer, William Dunbar, Ahmad Faraz, Atilla Ilhan, Allama Iqbal,
Ono no Komachi, Primo Levi, Plato, Miklos Radnoti, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sappho,
Sir Thomas Wyatt,
"Bede's Death Song", "Caedmon's Hymn," "Deor's Lament,"
"Fowles
in the Frith," "Lament for the Makaris," "Sweet Rose of Virtue," "Whoso List to Hunt," "The Wife's Lament,"
"Wulf and Eadwacer," Native American blessings and proverbs, Urdu love
poems
A Note about Translations: Burch subscribes to the idea of les belles
infidèles: Like women, translations should be either beautiful or faithful.
Of course women can be both beautiful and faithful, but the most faithful
word-for-word translations seldom if ever result in poetry in a second language.
As the great Rabindranath Tagore explained, he needed leeway when translating
his own Bengali poems into English, if he wanted the result to be poetry.
Therefore, Burch calls his translations "loose translations" and
"interpretations" and does not attempt to translate word-by-word with complete
fidelity. Rather, he attempts to "grok" the poet and the poem to the best of his
ability, then create poetry based on his interpretation of the original work and
its author's intentions. For more information please click this link:
Michael R. Burch Translation Notes,
Methods and Credits to Other Translators
BBC Radio 3: A number of Burch's Sappho translations were read
on BBC Radio 3 by Diana Quick and Sophie Ward. Diana Quick is an English actress
best known for the role of Lady Julia Flyte in the television production of
Brideshead Revisited. Sophie Ward is an English actress who played
Elizabeth Hardy, the love interest of Sherlock Holmes, in the film Young
Sherlock Holmes.
Other Translations: The poems of Michael R. Burch have been
translated into 20 languages by 27 translators: (1) Arabic by Nizar Sartawi and
Iqbal Tamimi; (2) Bengali by Jewel Mazhar/Majhar; (3) Chinese by Chen Bolai, (4)
Croatian by Teodora "Tea" Pecarina; (5) Czech by Václav Z J Pinkava; (6) Farsi
by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian, Farideh Hassanzadeh Mostafavi and Rahel Yahia; (7) Gjuha
Shqipe (Albanian) by Majlinda Bashllari; (8) Greek by Γεράσιμος Κομποθέκρας (Gerassimos
Kombothekras) and published by the University of Athens; (9) Hungarian by István
Bagi; (10) Indonesian by A. J. Anwar; (11) Italian by Comasia Aquaro and Mario
Rigli; (12) Macedonian by Marija Girevska; (13) Romanian by Petru Dimofte; (14)
Russian by Yelena Dubrovin and Vera Zubarev; (15) Turkish by Nurgül Yayman; (16)
Vietnamese by Linh Vu (there are around a hundred Vietnamese translations of Burch's
original poems and English translations of Oriental poetry); (17) Punjabi by the
translators of the Literary School of Education; (18) Polish by Inga B. Kuzma;
(19) Bulgarian by Iveta Kraleva; (20) Spanish by Fausto Marcelo Ávila Ávila
Public Readings (125+ including YouTube and other Online Readings):
"The Effects of Memory" was read as part of the Candlelight Reading
Series, on Valentine's Day in 2006.
Fourteen (14) of Burch's Sappho translations were read on BBC Radio 3 by Diana
Quick and Sophie Ward.
Two (2) of Burch's Sappho translations (odes to Anactoria #31 and #94) were to
be read on radio station KMUN in Astoria, Oregon in 2023.
David Gosselin has done public recitals of "Love Has a Southern Flavor" and
"Something."
Robert Davidson read "Something" at Somers High School after the Pittsburgh
synagogue shootings.
Burch read four (4) of his poems for the How Sweet the Night poetry CD
published by Romantics Quarterly in 2002: "Ordinary Love," "Goddess," "Circe"
and "She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful."
"I, too, have a dream" was read during a podcast by Mitali Chakravarty, the
editor of Borderless Journal.
YouTube Readings and Other Videos (100+):
"For a Ukrainian Child with Butterflies" was set to music by Pauli Hansen and
performed by a choir at the Nordic House in Torshavn, Faroe Islands
YouTube readings (3) by Ben Reads Poetry (Ben W. Smith): "Moments,"
"Infinity," "Will There Be Starlight"
YouTube videos (7) by Lillian Y. Wong: "Ali's Song," "Something,"
"Survivors," "At Wilfred Owen's Grave," "Auschwitz Rose,"
Miklos Radnoti "Postcard 1" translation
YouTube readings (7) by 3-Minute Buddhism of Issa translations by Michael R. Burch:
Snail, Cricket, Skinny Frog, World of Dew, Tardy Moon, Wild Geese, Tomcat
YouTube videos (5) of musical performances by Dima Bawab and Eduard de Boer:
"The Children of Gaza" (song cycle)
YouTube reading (5) by Alice Ho: Burch’s translations of Native
American poems
YouTube readings (3) by Jasper Sole: "Moments," "Something,"
"Enigma"
YouTube readings (28) by David B. Gosselin: "To Have Loved," "Sappho
Fragment 16," "Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite," "Sappho's Ode to Anactoria," "Love Has a Southern Flavor," "Something," "Pan," "Daredevil," "Free
Fall," "Besieged," Li Bai "Spring Breeze" translation, "R.I.P.," "In the
Whispering Night," "Insurrection," "Resurrecting Passion," "Righteous,"
"Violets,"
"Will There Be Starlight," "Regret," "I Pray Tonight," "Ebb
Tide," "Infinity," "Sunset," "The Wonder Boys,"
"Earthbound," and three Egyptian Harper’s Song translations
YouTube video by Leandros Corieltauvorum of a Burch translation
of Sappho fragment 52 "Pleiades"
YouTube video of the mixed media play
Summoning the Spirit: Poems of Komachi features
several Burch translations of Komachi poems
YouTube recording of the music to An Ardent Love Affair with
lyrics by Burch
YouTube reading by Vaishali Paliwal: a Burch translation of Mirza
Ghalib's "Not the blossomings of songs"
YouTube reading by Vaishali Paliwal: a Burch translation of Mirza Ghalib's "It’s time for the world to hear Ghalib again!"
YouTube video by Shila Roshid: a poem Burch wrote as The Child Poets of
Gaza, "I, Too, Have a Dream"
YouTube reading by G.M. Danielson: "Pale Though Her Eyes"
YouTube reading by Per Irma Video/Aurora G: "Ghost"
YouTube reading by Carmen Garcia with music (piano accompaniment):
"She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful"
YouTube reading by 1994wee: "Memory"
YouTube analysis of the ghazal by Anupam Mishra: used a
translation of the Nasir Kazmi poem "What Happened To Them?"
YouTube Darfur video by Vallana88: incorporated "Neglect"
YouTube reading by Haunting Poems for Halloween/Charles: "All
Hallow's Eve"
YouTube video by Sarah Ahmed of the Livingstone Sonnet Project:
William Dunbar "Sweet Rose of Virtue" translation
YouTube video by Jenna Thiel and Jake Owens:
rap/singing version of William Dunbar "Sweet Rose of Virtue" translation
YouTube reading by Jordan Harling:
William Dunbar "Sweet Rose of Virtue" translation
YouTube reading/video: O no Yasumaro "plumegrass wilts"
translation
YouTube musical performance by Devan Wardrop-Saxton: "A Kinder
Sea" Plato translation
YouTube video by Book Feast, in English and Tamil: a discussion
of Burch's translation of "The Burning of the Books" by Bertolt Brecht
YouTube video by Literally Yours (Malayalam): using Burch's translation of "The Burning of the Books" by Bertolt Brecht
YouTube reading by Bourbonnais Public Library: "Vampires"
YouTube musical performance by Sigrid Vipa: "I Have a Yong Suster" translation, singing with a 12-string Celtic harp
YouTube reading by Himel Khandakar Himu: "Deor's Lament"
translation
YouTube cello interpretation by Jenny Jackson: "The Wife's Lament"
translation
YouTube reading by PoemNeverDies of "Iz" by Abdurehim Otkur
used my English translation as a reference
YouTube reading by SongofAndred: "Song of Amergin" translation
YouTube reading by Reaction Romance: "Are You the Thief"
YouTube reading by Filha de Hecate-Roseira: Burch's translation of
"Temple Hymn 15" by Enheduanna
YouTube video by Shomoy Mahmud: incorporated Burch's translation of
Masaoka Shiki's "Swat the flies" haiku
YouTube video by Armand Amar: "Epitaph for a Homeless Child"
was published by Armand Amar with his composition "Home"
YouTube Poetry Life and Times: Anthology faces compilation
YouTube reading by Tadj Abdelhafid: Burch's interpretation of
Albert Einstein quotes as the poems "Relativity" and "Solitude"
YouTube "kinetic type" video by Jeffrey Michael Miller: Burch's
interpretation of Albert Einstein quotes as the poem "Imagination"
YouTube relaxation/meditation video "The Nature of Nature" by Asma
Masooma: "The Leveler" was excerpted
YouTube relaxation/meditation video "Heartbeat" by Natures' ASMR:
"Passionate One" was quoted in full
YouTube video by Ivana Jenaj: published "Epitaph"
YouTube video by Rosita Laroda: used Burch/Yayman translation
of "You are indispensable" by Attila Ilhan
YouTube reading by World History Encyclopedia: Burch's
translation of "Lament to the Spirit of War" by Enheduanna
YouTube video by ShareInspireQuotes: Albert Einstein
"hazy/crazy" interpretation
YouTube reading by Sneha R: Burch's translation of "Deor's
Lament"
YouTube reading by Bloodghoul Narrations: "Pale Though Her
Eyes"
Vimeo video of a Bedales School reading of Burch's translation of "To a Mouse" by Robert
Burns
TikTok reading of "Christmas Wishes" by Charli Day
TikTok excerpt of "Frail Envelope of Flesh" by Sentient Pie
Factory
YouTube video by Mahryn Rose Barron using Burch's translation
of Sappho fragment #147 as the closing statement for a lovely and artistic
film/video titled "My Sappho."
New Lyre and YouTube podcast of Dave Gosselin reading
"Infinity" and discussing it with Adam Sedia.
YouTube reading by iswearenglish: "Wulf and Eadwacer"
YouTube reading by Delusion Love: "Poetry"
YouTube reading by Adelia Gracealla Tamba: "As Time Walked By"
YouTube video by Intro to Anthro (Episode 5) included Burch's translation of "To
a Mouse" by Robert Burns
YouTube reading by Mara Ahmed of Burch's translation
of “Existence” by Fadwa Tuqan
YouTube reading of “Auschwitz Rose” by Narad
YouTube reading of “Vampires” by Jeannie B. ASMR (12K views)
YouTube music and lyrics for
Eduard de Boer's orchestral versions of the nine poems of Children of Gaza
YouTube reading of Burch's translation of “Deor's Lament” in
a YouTube video by ZEST, The English Literary Society, Department of English,
Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, University of Delhi.
Other Publications and Collaborations:
Burch had a weekly column in The Nashville City Paper for three years, until it ceased
publication.
Burch served as an editor and translator of the book Hiroshima: Bridge to
Forgiveness by Hiroshima survivor Takashi "Thomas" Tanemori (published by
MBooks of BC, Canada).
Burch provided English translations of Hebrew poems by Adi Wolfson, the 2017
winner of Israel's prestigious Levi Eshkol Prize for Literature, in two books: I Am Your Father
and Oikos.
Burch edited the book Have Pool Cue Will Travel by Mark C. O'Brien; the
book is about the exploits of pool legend "St. Louie" Louie Roberts and other
colorful pool characters.
Benjamin Jones used extensive excerpts from a Burch article in his book
Pete Rose Unforgiven Forever and credited Burch prominently on the
book's second page.
Burch edited the book The Fascism This Time by Theo Horesh.
Burch's translation of Minamoto no Shitago’s "autumn fields" haiku is slated not
only to be published, but to play a somewhat pivotal role, in Fourteen Days,
a collaborative work of fiction by world-famous authors like Margaret Atwood
(also a co-editor), Diana Gabaldon, John Grisham, Erica Jong, Mary Pope Osborne,
R.L. Stine and Scott Turow. Fourteen Days is being published by The
Authors Guild Foundation, America's oldest and largest professional organization
that advocates for the rights of authors, and Harper Collins. The haiku in
question compares our world to a darkening field briefly lit by lightning
flashes. Author’s Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger described the plot of one of the
episodes as follows: "The story in the book takes place in a building on New
York City's lower East Side at the beginning of the pandemic when the tenants
meet nightly on the roof to share stories. The book weaves the stories together
while reporting on the various goings-on among the tenants. Our just-past
president, author Doug Preston, wrote the frame narrative that provides the
background of the characters and introduces the stories each evening. One
evening the residents come up to the roof to find a poem written on the wall –
in Japanese and with your translation." The proceeds from Fourteen Days
will go towards furthering the Guild's mission of "educating, supporting,
advocating and protecting American writers to ensure that a rich, diverse body
of literature can flourish."
Malika Favre requested permission to use the "cliff" stanza from a Burch
translation of Baudelaire in her upcoming art book the Kama Sutra
Project. "Malika Favre is a French artist based in London. Her bold,
minimal style – often described as Pop Art meets OpArt – is a striking
lesson in the use of positive/negative space and colour. Her unmistakable style
has established her as one of the UK’s most sought after graphic artists." Malika’s
publishers include The New Yorker, Vogue, Marie Claire and "many
others."
Cambridge University Press published this Burch translation in The Dark
Matter of Pragmatics by Steven C. Levinson:
This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane’s bill.
(Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch)
The translation above was accompanied by Footnote 13: "Most ordinary language is
not so spectacular of course, but it is because of this triggering of
potentially indefinite inferences that figurative language plays such an
important role in cherished forms of literature and song."
Burch wrote the Introduction to From Pittville to Paradise by Felicity
Teague.
Burch was the first editor mentioned in Interruptus by Felicity Teague,
as the editor most helpful to her career as a published poet.
Burch's translation of "Mask of Evil" by Bertolt Brecht was published in a
syllabus by Elvira Basevich, a professor of philosophy at the University of
Massachusetts, Lowell.
Burch's translation of the poem "Let us Be Midwives"
by Hiroshima survivor Sadako Kurihara has been published on a Hiroshima
University Facebook page (seminar of Professor Mari Katayanagi, Department of
Peace and Coexistence, IDEC, Hiroshima University).
Burch's translation of "Deor's Lament" has been published by Mahatma Gandhi
Univ. (India).
Burch's poem "First They Came for the Muslims" has been published by Amnesty
International in its Words That Burn anthology, which is being used to
train young human rights activists. The poem returned 891,000 Google results for
its most unique line, suggesting that the poem has "gone viral" in a big way.
Burch's translation of the Robert Burns poem "Comin' Thro the Rye" was published
in the book Guide to Enjoying Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and
Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters by John P. Anderson.
Burch wrote the introduction to the book Pope Caesar's Wake by the
Maltese poet Joe M. Ruggier. Burch also assisted with the editing and production
of the book, as mentioned by Ruggier in his Acknowledgements (published by
MBooks of BC, Canada).
Burch wrote the Foreword to Sunil Sharma's poetry collection What trees tell
the mortals and other songs and was mentioned in Sharma's Dedication.
In the notes to her poetry collection A Kinder Sea, the Australian poet Felicity Plunkett
said the title was "inspired by Michael Burch’s translation of a poem attributed
to Plato: ‘Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune:
I wish you a kinder sea.’"
Australian composer Daniel Brinsmead requested permission
to use A Kinder Sea as the title for one of his compositions.
The Canadian writer Julian Smith took the title of his book The World of Dew
and Other Stories from a Burch translation of a haiku by Kobayashi Issa.
Australian writer Diana Jarman requested permission to use five Burch translations in her work of
historical fiction, The Philatelist's Album. The translations requested
were Burch's
"night flies" and "wild geese" translations of two Masaoka Shiki
haiku, his "bonfires" translations of an Issa haiku, his "victor" translation of
an Ouchi Yoshitaka poem, and his "arrow" translation of a Tomoyuki Yamashita
poem.
English artist Emma Burleigh requested permission to use Burch's
translation of Basho's "chrysanthemum dew" haiku in her watercolor book Earth Color.
Burch's translations were quoted multiple times in Enheduanna: The First
Author, a novel by Alatary.
Burch's translation of Ono no Komachi's "ill winds" poem was quoted in the novel
I Am the Wild by Karpov Kinrade.
Jennifer Nicola, a photographer, interpreted Burch's vampire poem "Pale Though
Her Eyes" with model Megan Heatlie.
Peter Delahaye, an English abstract artist living in Venice, requested
permission to use Burch's poems with his abstract painting series "Dawn."
Burch's original poem "Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" appears in the book
A Game with the Mind by John A. Fosse
Burch's poem "Floating" is forthcoming in Imagine the Erne (a book of
photography and poetry by Richard Pierce).
Patricia Watwood, an American figurative artist, requested permission to use Burch's
translation of "The Field" by Rumi in her book The Path of Drawing.
Burch's poems "Almost" and "Enigma" were published in a poetry
collection, WORDS going places, by Chris Newlon Green.
Burch's translation of "Caedmon's Hymn" is to be published in a forthcoming book
by Jason Marlowe.
Burch's translation of the Ouchi Yoshitaka "dewdrops" haiku was quoted in
The Last Dead Man by Conor Barnes.
Burch's translation of "Lament to the Spirit of War" by the ancient Sumerian
poetess-priestess Enheduanna was excerpted by William Sheehan and Sanjay
Shridhar Limaye in their book Venus.
Burch's translation of "Lament to the Spirit of War" by the ancient Sumerian
poetess-priestess Enheduanna was translated into Polish in the book Kobieta
by Inga B. Kuzma and published by the University of Lodz, Poland.
Burch's translation of “My Very Gentle Valentine” by Charles d’Orleans was
published by the University of Gdansk on its website.
Burch's translation of “Deor's Lament” was published as a YouTube video by ZEST,
The English Literary Society, Department of English, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
College, University of Delhi.
Burch's translation of “Bede’s Death Song” was published by Houston Baptist
University on its website.
Burch's translation of “Wulf and Eadwacer” was excerpted in an
honors program thesis by John Anderson published on the
University of Northern Iowa website.
"The Pictish Faeries" appeared in Voiceless, a novel by
Lunawritings.
“Earthbound” was published in the novel Fear the Shadow: The Invasion
by Michael Wayne.
Burch's translation of “The Love Song of Shu-Sin” appears in the book When
the Nightingale Sings (chapter 20).
Burch's translation of a "Kinder Sea" epigram attributed to Plato is scheduled
to be included in a memoir by Jennifer Joy Molter.
Four Burch haiku translations are slated to appear in a forthcoming book by Marielle
Dufva.
A line from Burch's translation of “Wulf and Eadwacer” was excerpted in the
novel After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry.
Burch's bio of Adah Isaacs Menken was requested by
Richard Kostelanetz for his book AVANT-GARDE CLASSICS.
Burch was cited five times in the Masters Thesis of Sara Cline: “The Modernist
Sappho” on the University of Washington website.
Burch's translation of the Ahmad Faraz ghazal "Ranjish hi Sahi" ("If it means
Grief, so be it") was used as an example in an academic paper on the translation
of ghazals by Sreeja Chakraborty, PhD scholar, Tezpur University, Assam, India.
Burch's translation of Mirza Ghalib's couplet "Inquiry" was used in the novel
Meadowlands Dawn by Jo Beall.
Burch sponsored and provided production funding for Zyskandar Jaimot's poetry
collection Take Me Home to Pringus, as mentioned by Jaimot in his
Acknowledgements (published by MBooks of BC, Canada).
Burch sponsored and provided production funding for Tom Merrill's poetry
collection Outlaw's Retreat, as mentioned by editor Joe M. Ruggier on
page II of the preliminaries and on the back cover (published by MBooks of BC,
Canada).
Burch sponsored and provided production funding for V. Ulea's poetry collection
Lunar Rhapsody, as acknowledged on the back cover (published
by MBooks of BC, Canada).
Burch sponsored the poetry collection 42 Poems in Rhyme and Meter by
Mary Keelan Meisel (published posthumously with the permission of her family)
and assisted with the editing and publication as mentioned by chief editor Joe
M. Ruggier on page II of the preliminaries (published by MBooks of BC, Canada).
Reviews of The HyperTexts:
Oxford University called The HyperTexts "dynamic and challenging"
with a "different approach" to poetry, on its ARCH resource page for the Arts &
Humanities.
"Some of the best poetry on the web."―Vera Ignatowitsch, editor-in-chief of Better
Than Starbucks
"The HyperTexts reads like a Who's Who in contemporary poetry
today."—Michael Morton, Director of the Net Poetry & Arts Competition
Published Interviews (14):
An asterisk means Burch was the interviewer, the lack of an asterisk means Burch
was the interviewee.
A Long Story Short/Poet's Corner
ArtVilla
Better than Starbucks
Eternal Voices
Kajal Ahmad (*)
Tom Merrill (*)
Richard Moore (*)
On the Road with Judy "Joy" Jones
Poetry Life & Times
ProMosaik
Pressenza
Triplopia
Vallance Review
John Whitworth (*)
Poems by other Poets: Michael R. Burch has been mentioned in
poems by other poets, including "For Michael Burch" by Vera Zubarev, "DEFINING
POETRY —To Mike Burch" by Norman Kraeft, and "Go Visit the Tree…I Tell Myself"
by Reta Lorraine Bowen Taylor.
Influences:
Michael R. Burch cites his major poetic and artistic influences as follows:
Matsuo Basho (for saying so much in so few words), William Blake (the world's
greatest poet/artist along with Michelangelo), Robert Burns (for melody), e. e.
cummings (for breaking the rules in pursuit of better poems), A. E. Housman
(for "no frills" direct statement), Langston Hughes (for evocative
truth-telling), Tom Merrill (for individuality and uniqueness of voice),
Michelangelo (for bringing angels to life), Richard Thomas Moore (for
skepticism), Sappho (for passion), Mark Twain (for humor), Voltaire (for
foxiness and outwitting his enemies), and Walt Whitman (for breaking the mold in
so many ways).
Pseudonyms and Aliases: Michael R. Burch has, at times,
published under the pseudonyms Kim Cherub (a rearrangement of the letters in
"Mike Burch"), prophetically as Immanuel A. Michael (with the middle initial
standing for "Archangel"), and as "The Child Poets of Gaza"
Holocaust Studies and Books about the Holocaust:
The original poems and translations of Michael R. Burch have been used in many Holocaust
studies and student projects and presentations over the years. The original poems most
frequently used in Holocaust studies include "Epitaph for a Child of the
Holocaust," "Frail Envelope of Flesh," "Something" and "Auschwitz Rose."
Michael R. Burch's translation of "Postcard 3" by Miklos Radnoti appeared on
Academia.edu in the essay "Reweighing Genocide on an International Legal Scale"
by Souryja Das (Indonesia).
Michael R. Burch's translation of "Postcard 4" by Miklos Radnoti has been
published or is scheduled to be published in:
The 1944 Crvenka Massacre by Caroline Mezger
The Fist Which Opens by Rati Saxena
Generations Shall Call Them Blessed,
a book about the Holocaust for Christians by Dan Paulson
The Akron Beacon Journal
Also in literary journals and websites which include Poetry Super Highway, Better
Than Starbucks, Boloji, San Diego Jewish World, Promosaik, Convivium, Pig Pen
Poetry, Progressive Poetry Forum, Poemist, Romenu (Romania), Mae’r Byd
(Hungary), Hungarian Cultural Center London, Australian Indigenous
Perspectives, the Suffolk Poetry Society website, and a YouTube montage by
LYW (Lillian Y. Wong)
Religious Services, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples:
"Peace Prayer" was published on the website of The Episcopal Church of St.
Matthew (San Mateo, CA); the Holocaust poem "Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address"
was published by Archbishop Michael Seneco on his Facebook page and personal
website; the Holocaust poem "Something" was used by the Windsor Jewish Community
Centre during a candle-lighting ceremony; "Something" was used by Park Hill
Church during a Holocaust remembrance service; "Something" was read by Robert
Davidson during a vigil with Rabbi Jason Nevarez of Temple Shaaray Tefila at
Somers High School.
Colleges/Universities (31):
University of Arizona Poetry Center, US (Sappho fragment 113 honey/bee
translation)
University of Athens, Greece ("She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful"
translated into Greek by Gerassimos Kombothekras)
Auburn University, US ("Wulf and Eadwacer" translation)
Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine (Burch's translation/modernization of
"To a Mouse" by Robert Burns was excerpted in an essay by Karolina Galkina that
was published on the university’s website. Karolina Galkina later published “The
peculiarities of translating Robert Burns’ poetry into Standard English” in
Scientific Horizons. Galkina's introduction
began with a paragraph from Burch's introduction to
the poetry of Burns and the essay’s first excerpted translation was a stanza
from “To a Mouse.” A second excerpt was a stanza from Burch's
translation/modernization of “A Red, Red Rose.” )
University of Connecticut, US ("Sandy Hook Call to Love")
C.U.N.Y., US ("Wulf and Eadwacer" translation taught by Dr. Elizabeth
Mazzola in an upper-division elective class, English 45401 "Roaring Girls")
University of Edinburgh, "Deor's Lament" translation to be used at a Medieval
Literature conference by postgraduate student Rebekah Day
Evergreen College, US (Miklos Radnoti "Postcard 2" translation)
Mahatma Gandhi University, "Deor's Lament" translation published by MA English
302: English Language and Literature
Grand Valley State University, US ("Caedmon’s Hymn" translation
taught)
Hiroshima University, Japan ("Let Us Be Midwives" translation)
Icon, a publication of Kent State University, US ("The Poet")
Kenyatta University, Kenya (eight poems)
Burch's translation of “Hear, Israel!” by Erich Fried was published in Arabic
Literature in Palestine by the Department of Arabic at the University of Kerala.
Leicester University, UK (William Blake citation)
Los Angeles Harbor College, US ("Caedmon’s Hymn" translation)
University of Lodz, Poland, published Burch's translation of "Lament to the
Spirit of War" by the ancient Sumerian poetess-priestess Enheduanna in
a Polish translation in the book Kobieta and credited
Burch's English translation.
University of Maribor, Slovenia, cited in "Elizabeth Bishop and the Villanelle:
One Art, an Ocean, and Two Languages" by Michelle Gadpaille and Tomaž Onič,
Faculty of Arts (citation)
Nebo, a publication of Arkansas Tech University, US ("Reckoning")
Open University, UK (Takaha Shugyo translation being taught)
Oxford University, UK (a highly positive ARCH review of The HyperTexts)
University of Pennsylvania website (links to four Vera Pavlov translations)
St. John’s College, UK ("Caedmon’s Hymn" translation)
St. John’s College, UK, (Robert Burns "To a Mouse" translation/modernization)
Salford University, UK ("Auschwitz Rose")
Salu Ghotki University, Pakistan (Bertolt Brecht translation)
Southern Methodist University, US ("Ebb Tide" published in Southwest Review)
Tennessee Tech. taught "Auschwitz Rose" in an American Literature class in 2012.
University of Virginia, US ("Are You the Thief")
Wichita State University, US (Robert Burns translation/modernization in a lesson
plan)
Yaroslavl State University, Russia ("Deor’s Lament" and "The Wife’s Lament"
translations)
Education:
The poems and translations of Michael R. Burch have been taught, recited,
published and/or otherwise used by secondary schools, high schools and
universities in the following countries: Canada (Alberta Science Teachers
Association, Albert Einstein "Solitude" translation), England (Salford University,
"Auschwitz Rose," Southend-on-Sea Borough, "Neglect," and several
others), France (secondary school, "Vampires"), Greece (University of Athens,
"She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful" as translated by Gerassimos Kombothekras),
Iran (secondary, "Brother Iran" in a Farsi translation), Italy (high school, "Orpheus" and other Blakean poems), Japan (Hiroshima
University, "Let Us Be Midwives" translation), Jordan (Jo Academy, "To a Mouse"
translation), Kenya (Kenyatta University, eight poems), Pakistan (Salu Ghotki
University, Bertolt Brecht translations), Russia (Yaroslavl State University
"Deor's Lament" and "The Wife's Lament" translations), Serbia (Kosovo
middle school, "Where Does the
Butterfly Go"), Ukraine (Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, "To a Mouse"
translation), and the United States (Auburn University "Wulf and Eadwacer"
translation, "Sandy Hook Call to Love" was to be published by the University of
Connecticut in Public Speaking: A Bridge to Success as an example of
emotive writing, Kent State University, SMU, Wichita
State University, Tennessee Technological University, and many others).
Burch's translations of "Bede's Death Song," "Caedmon's Hymn" and "Wulf and
Eadwacer" have been used in courseware by the Classical Latin School Association
and Memoria Press.
Burch's translation of Takaha Shugyo's "rowboat" poem is slated to be used in
courseware by Open University. Open University is the UK's largest university by
number of students, and one of the world's largest, with over 175,000 students.
Burch's
most popular poems with educators and students are his "Epitaph," "Auschwitz
Rose" and other Holocaust poems and translations, and his Robert Burns
translations.
Quoted and/or Cited in Scholarly Works (400+):
According to the Academia.edu search engine, the exact name "Michael R. Burch"
(in quotation marks) appeared in 404 papers as of 8-31-2022. There are many more
occurrences of the name "Michael Burch" but some of those pertain to other
writers with the same first and last name.
Burch's translations of "Wulf and Eadwacer" were used in an essay "Venus sans
furs" by Elizabeth Mazzola, a Professor of English at The City College of New
York. Dr. Mazzola commented: "I wanted to share with you the final proofs for my
essay on women and wolves, which features your exquisite work on 'Wulf and
Eadwacer.' Your scholarship is outstanding and provocative and has made all the
difference to my reading of this poem, and I hope you enjoy the essay."
Burch was the first contemporary writer mentioned in Katarzyna Poreba’s
dissertation THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM BLAKE IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE published by
TARNÓW STATE COLLEGE, Poland.
Burch's translation of "To the Martyrs of Çanakkale" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy was
used in the Routledge Studies essay "Reflections on the Gallipoli Campaign in
Turkish Literature" by Safak Horzum
Burch's translation of "To the Martyrs of Çanakkale" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy was
used in the essay "THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN NATIONALIST AND JIHADIST NARRATIVES OF
GALLIPOLI, 1915-2015" by Ayhan Aktar published in Forum for Modern Language
Studies, Vol. 56, No. 2
Burch's translation of "Temple Hymn 7" by Enheduanna was quoted in "The
Chronological Outline of the Scythians, Arattas, Ancient Persians, Cimmerians,
Hittites, Hurrians (Mitanni), Romas (Gypsies), and Tokharins" by Vedveer Arya on
Academia.edu.
Burch was cited three times in
"American inaugural poetry: poetics and style" by Iryna Yakovenko, PhD, Taras
Shevchenko National University, Chernihiv, Ukraine.
Burch's original poem
"Epitaph for a Palestinian Child" was used as the lead epigraph in Genocide:
A Political Discretion by Nagendram Braveen on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "The Burning of the Books" by Bertolt Brecht was used in
War Machines by David Brian Howard on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "The Burning of the Books" by Bertolt Brecht was
cited in The Aesthetics of Violence by Hans Jacob Ohldieck and Gisle
Selnes
Burch's translation of "Postcard 3" by Miklos Radnoti was used in the essay "Reweighing Genocide on an International Legal Scale" by Souryja Das on
Academia.edu
Burch's translation of Basho's famous frog poem was used in the essay "The Role
of Language and the Significance of Primordialism in Nationalistic Rhetoric" by
Elisa Vitali on Academia.edu
Burch's translations of Enheduanna were cited in the essay "Kobieta – przestrzeń
konfliktów, pole walk. Szkice z antropologii politycznej" by Inga B. Kuźma and
Edyta B. Pietrzak on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "Every Once in a While" by Amjad Islam Amjad
was published in full and discussed in detail in the essay "Semantic, Pragmatic and Cultural Equivalence in the Source Text
and Target Text of the Selected Poetry of Amjad Islam
Amjad" by Ruqia Wazir and Muhammad Arfan Lodhi posted on rafaad.com and
Academia.edu.
Burch's observation that to the mystics "[God] is the great sea of unity and
each human being is like an individual wave arising from that sea and collapsing
back into it" was quoted by Mahmut Kayaalti in CONTROVERSIAL REPRESENTATION OF
GOD AND CHRISTIANITY IN WILLIAM BLAKE’S SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE
published by Istanbul University, Turkey.
Burch's translation of "The Song of Amergin" was published by Heidi Hanley in
her essay "Longfellow Was a Druid."
"Frail Envelope of Flesh" appeared in a Vietnamese translation in Tho Tru
Tinh ("New Romanticism") by Ngu Yen on Academia.edu
Burch's "boneless" Anglo-Saxon riddle translation was used in "Los Aspectos
Sonoros" by Celene Garcia-Avila on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "Comin Thro the Rye" by Robert Burns was used by Cavdar
Tarlasinda Buyumek in an essay with the same title on Academia.edu
Burch was quoted and/or cited seven times in Accents and Paradoxes of Modern
Philology published by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine V.
N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, edited by Svitlana Kryvoruchko, Doctor
of sciences (Philology).
Burch was quoted in the essay "Carceral Christianization as a Religious Problem
of Generations" by Robin Mitchell Stroud, PhD on Academia.edu.
Burch was cited twice in "The Existence – The Dimension of the Mind" by Anne Henriques on Academia.edu.
Burch's translation was cited twice in Translating "The Wife's Lament" to
Modern English by Hussein Medlej on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "The Wife's Lament" was cited twice in a paper by
Hussein Medlej on Academia.edu.
Burch was cited in the essay "Cledisat: un esempio d'inquinamento testuale" by
Maurizio Perugi on Academia.edu.
Burch's translations of "Wulf and Eadwacer" were mentioned in a Hungarian essay
about the poem by Julia Kepes.
Burch was cited in a German article about William Blake written by Jarkko Pylvas
and published on Academia.edu.
Burch's original poem
"See" was cited in "Examples of Figures of Speech" by Aysegul Safak on
Academia.edu
Burch's translation of
"Caedmon's Hymn" was cited in "Famous Sonnets of English Poets" by Mohsin Mirza
on Academia.edu
Burch's translation of "Fragment 42" by Sappho was cited in "Examples of Figures
of Speech" by Aysegul Safak on Academia.edu
Burch's "Famous Insults" collection was cited in "Fundamental Values of
Language and Culture" by Аnna Proskurina.
An interview Burch did with Esther Cameron was cited in "Tracing the Journey of
Paul Celan’s Poetry" by Jana Vytrhlik on Academia.edu.
Burch was quoted and his translations of Robert Burns were cited in "The Poet,
the President, and the Preservationist: Robert Burns, Abraham Lincoln, and John
Muir" by Walter G. Moss on Academia.edu
Syracuse University published the thesis "Antichrist in the Oval Office" by
Meagan Bojarski on its website. The 88-page thesis is dedicated almost
exclusively to The HyperTexts and to one THT page in particular, which
questions how similar Trump is to antichrists as they are discussed in the
Bible. The page makes no claim that Trump is the Antichrist or an antichrist,
and leaves all decisions up to the reader. Bojarski’s thesis had the following
word counts: Burch (11), The Hypertexts (62), the specific page (43).
Çavdar Tarlasinda Büyümek published Burch's translation/modernization of "Comin'
Thro the Rye" in his paper on J. D. Salinger published on Academia.edu.
Burch's essay “The Continuing Influence of Geoffrey Chaucer” appears in the book
Music Shapes Us by Alexis May Page.
Other Citations:
Burch's observations about his translation of "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns were
quoted by Hollywood Progressive.
Burch was cited as a prominent publisher of modern sonnets in the 21st century
in the book Poetry Kaleidoscope by Nicolae Sfetcu.
Health and Wellness:
"Syndrome" was published by the National Association for Down Syndrome; "The
Leveler" was excerpted in a YouTube relaxation/meditation video "The Nature of
Nature" by Asma Masooma.
Clothing/Merchandise:
Burch's interpretation of Albert Einstein in his "hazy/crazy" epigram was turned
into a t-shirt sold by the Communety Store.
Burch's interpretation of Albert Einstein in his "hazy/crazy" epigram was turned
into a coffee mug being sold on Amazon.
Burch's translation of "An Ancient Egyptian Love Lyric" has been used to
advertise Elixir D’amore on Etsy.com.
Burch's translation of "An Ancient Egyptian Love Lyric" has been used to
advertise The Lovers Oil on Etsy.com.
Cartoons:
Cartoon Movement has paired Burch's poem "I, Too, Have a Dream" with a cartoon,
very effectively, at
https://www.cartoonmovement.com/cartoon/potential-threat
Michael R. Burch TIMELINE and Extended Biography
The following timeline provides detailed information about
Michael R. Burch's career and how some of his poems came to be written ...
Career highlights are
bolded and underlined.
1958: Michael R. Burch was born on February 19, 1958 in Orlando, Florida. His
English mother, Christine Ena Hurt, was a loving, compassionate
and selfless mother and homemaker. Burch wrote the poem "Mother's Smile" in
her honor; it placed first in a Penguin Books poetry contest in 2008. His American father, Paul
Ray Burch Jr., was a 20-year man in the United States Air Force.
There never was a fonder smile
than mother’s smile, no softer touch
than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."
—from "Mother's Smile" by Michael R. Burch
1959: Burch and his mother lived with her parents, George Edwin Hurt Sr. and
Christine Ena Spouse, in Mattersey, England, while his father was stationed
at Thule, Greenland. Thus Burch grew up speaking with an English accent (long
since lost). Burch was talking nonstop at a very early age. In fact, his grandfather got in a fight with a co-worker who called
him a liar, saying it wasn't possible for two-year-olds to say such things! But
Burch was evidently just getting warmed up ...
alien
by michael r. burch, circa age 19
there are mornings in england
when, riddled with light,
the Blueberries gleam at us—
plump, sweet and fragrant.
but i am so small ...
what do i know
of the ways of the Daffodils?
“beware of the Nettles!”
we go laughing and singing,
but somehow, i, ...
i know i am lost. i do not belong
to this Earth or its Songs.
and yet i am singing ...
the sun—so mild;
my cheeks are like roses;
my skin—so fair.
i spent a long time there
before i realized: They have no faces,
no bodies, no voices.
i was always alone.
and yet i keep singing:
the words will come
if only i hear.
MRB: This poem was influenced by e. e. cummings. One of my earliest memories is picking blueberries amid the brambles
surrounding the tiny English hamlet, Mattersey, where I and my mother lived with
her parents while my American father was stationed in Thule, Greenland. England is free of dangerous animals, but one must be wary of the
copious thorns and nettles. I seem to remember writing this poem as a college
sophomore, around age 19, in 1977. According to my notes, I revised the poem
nearly a quarter of a century later, in March 2001.
1960: When Burch's father returned from Thule, the family was reunited in
Gainsborough, England. Burch lived in England for approximately five
years. His sisters Sandra Jane Burch and Debra Leigh Burch were both born
there. One of his earliest memories was going to the hospital to collect Debby
after her puzzling appearance. Where did babies come from—storks, really?
1963: The family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where Burch attended
kindergarten. He still had an English accent,
because his teacher criticized him for
pronouncing "been" as "bin." But c'mon, who invented
the language? There are memories of his mother weeping over President John
F. Kennedy's televised funeral, and another little boy saluting his father's casket ...
1964: First grade in Lincoln, Nebraska. The first book Burch fell in love with was
Charlotte's Web, which was read to the class by his teacher, one chapter per day. His
favorite poem was "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, which his mother sometimes
recited from memory to her enthralled children at bedtime.
1965: Second grade in Lincoln, Nebraska. The class practiced ducking under
wooden desks for "protection" against Russian nukes. The desks were
not very reassuring! Burch would later write an essay about this experience: "Of
Men, Mice and Mincemeat (Me)."
1966: Third grade. The Burches moved to Nashville, Tennessee. They would live for a time
with Paul Burch's mother, Lillian Lee, and her second husband, Eric Lee. The Lees
owned a small grocery store on Sixth Avenue South, close to downtown Nashville.
The Burches later moved into a house in Donelson, a suburb of Nashville. They
were joined there by Paul Ray Burch Sr., who was unmarried at the time. Burch
would later write "Salat Days" about his childhood discovery of the reason his
grandfather went hunting a noxious weed that had to be boiled multiple
times before it could be safely eaten! Grandpa Burch took the Burch kids to see their first
movie: Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball.
Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch
for my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.
I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long thin legs, watching the sweat bees drone,
talking about poke salat—
how easy it was to find if you knew where to look for it ...
standing in dew-damp clumps by the side of a road, shockingly green,
straddling fence posts, overflowing small ditches,
crowding out the less-hardy nettles.
“Nobody knows that it’s there, lad, or that it’s fit tuh eat
with some bacon drippin’s or lard.”
“Don’t eat the berries. You see—the berry’s no good.
And you’d hav’ta wash the leaves a good long time.”
“I’d boil it twice, less’n I wus in a hurry.
Lawd, it’s tough to eat, chile, if you boil it jest wonst.”
He seldom was hurried; I can see him still ...
silently mowing his yard at eighty-eight,
stooped, but with a tall man’s angular gray grace.
Sometimes he’d pause to watch me running across the yard,
trampling his beans,
dislodging the shoots of his tomato plants.
He never grew flowers; I never laughed at his jokes about The Depression.
Years later I found the proper name—“pokeweed”—while perusing a dictionary.
Surprised, I asked why anyone would eat a weed.
I still can hear his laconic reply ...
“Well, chile, s’m’times them times wus hard.”
1967: Fourth grade. The Burches moved to Roseville, California, a suburb of Sacramento.
It was very hot, so most time away from school was spent at the
community swimming pool. Burch was a small, often-frustrated perfectionist. If
he made a writing mistake, he would tear up the whole page and start over. He
was bullied by an older girl named Sarjann, or something like that, and would later write a poem about the experience: "The
sky opens wide / in a land of no rain, / and who are you to bring me such pain?"
Sarjann
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 16
What did I ever do
to make you hate me so?
I was only nine years old,
lonely and afraid,
a small stranger in a large land.
Why did you abuse me
and taunt me?
Even now, so many years later,
the question still haunts me:
what did I ever do?
Why did you despise me and reject me,
pushing and shoving me around
when there was no one to protect me?
Why did you draw a line
in the bone-dry autumn dust,
daring me to cross it?
Did you want to see me cry?
Well, if you did, you did.
"... oh, leave me alone,
for the sky opens wide
in a land of no rain,
and who are you
to bring me such pain? ..."
1968: Fifth grade. The Burches moved to Wiesbaden, Germany. They would live for two
years in a tiny German hamlet, Bischofsheim, while waiting for USAF base
housing. Because there were no American boys to play with, and no
English-language radio or TV stations, Burch began to visit the base library,
taking out the maximum eight books, reading them in a few days, then taking out
eight more, and repeating. His English language skills zoomed far above the norm
for his age. In the fifth grade Burch tested at a college sophomore reading level
and was placed in a reading group of one, where he studied the classics while
his fellow students perused normal fifth-grade fare. Around this time Burch read a comic book in which a
super villain screamed "Frail envelope of flesh!" at a super hero. Burch was
struck by the power of the words and never forgot them. His poem "Frail Envelope
of Flesh," composed thirty years later in 1998, would become one of his more
popular poems on the Internet.
Frail Envelope of Flesh
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 19
Frail envelope of flesh,
lying cold on the surgeon’s table
with anguished eyes
like your mother’s eyes
and a heartbeat weak, unstable ...
Frail crucible of dust,
brief flower come to this—
your tiny hand
in your mother’s hand
for a last bewildered kiss ...
Brief mayfly of a child,
to live two artless years!
Now your mother’s lips
seal up your lips
from the Deluge of her tears ...
Burch discovered poetry in a large green book of
popular poems. Already a budding literary critic,
Burch identified two poems in the book that he thought stood out: "Breathes
there the man" by Sir Walter Scott and "My Grandfather's Clock" by Henry Clay
Work, the latter for its musical qualities.
1969: Sixth grade in Wiesbaden, Germany. The Burches watched Neil Armstrong set
foot on the moon at a friend's house (there was still no Burch TV set). Burch developed his first crushes on girls: CM and MC.
He was also falling in love with music that would later influence his poetry: Bob
Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Aretha Franklin, The Zombies, Cream,
The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Animals, The Doors, Sly and the Family
Stone, The Bee Gees, Aaron Neville, CCR, Jackie Wilson, Frankie Valli,
et al.
It was in 1969 that Burch stumbled upon a lifelong passion when he read his
father's copy of Who's Who in Baseball. His favorite baseball player was Pete
Rose, the subject of a poem he wrote as a teenager:
hey pete
by michael r. burch, circa age 18
for Pete Rose
hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy's dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then you'll be a Superstar.
MRB:
When I was a boy,
Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player; this poem is not a slam
at him, but rather an ironic jab at the term "superstar."
Burch's first poem, "Bible Libel," was written sometime between 1969 and
1971.
Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 11-13
If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
MRB: I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11, at the suggestion of my
devout Christian parents. But I was more of a doubting Thomas. The so-called
"word of God" left me aghast. How could anyone possibly claim the biblical god
Yahweh/Jehovah was good, wise, loving, or just? I came up with this epigram to
express my conclusions. I never submitted the poem for formal publication, to my
recollection, but I have used it in online discussions, so it is "out there."
And other people seem to like it enough to cut and paste it, a LOT. At one time,
according to Google results, the poem had gone viral and appeared on over 78K
web pages! Those seem like pretty good results for a preteen poem.
The first poems I wrote deliberately as poems, with the goal of
becoming a poet, were "Happiness" and "Playmates." So I have often referred to
them as my first and second poems. But "Bible Libel" came
first, although I have always considered it more of an epigram than a poem.
Primary influences on "Bible Libel" include the King James Bible and the direct
statement poems of A. E. Housman, who was highly critical of the Bible and the
Christian religion it spawned.
"Bible Libel" has been published online by Boloji (India), Nexus
Myanmar (Burma), Kalemati (Iran), Pride Magazine
(Nigeria),
Brief Poems, Formal Verse, Idle Hearts, AZquotes (in its Top 17 Very Witty Quotes),
Quote Master, and numerous other quote websites.
Scorecard: age 11-13, one publication, not counting multiple
publications of the same poem.
1970: Seventh grade in Wiesbaden, Germany. Burch is six-foot-two and thin as a
rail at age twelve, and has added a new passion: basketball.
1971: Eighth grade in Wiesbaden, Germany. By this time Burch has read hundreds
of books: Austen, Bronte, Chaucer, Dickens, Defoe, Joyce, Melville, Shakespeare,
Twain, Verne, Voltaire, Whitman, Wilde, et al. He has also read extensively
about subjects he finds of interest, such as nature, animals, dinosaurs, evolution,
ancient history, the age of chivalry, warfare and modern science. He doesn't
particularly like math, but is good at it.
1972: Ninth grade. The Burches moved to Goldsboro, North Carolina, where Burch
found himself far ahead of his classmates. It was around
this time, age 13 to 14, that Burch began to write poetry seriously. It quickly became
an obsession. His first longish poem, never published, was titled
"Happiness." It compared happiness to a bubble that is always in danger of
bursting.
Happiness
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14
Happiness is like a bubble,
What's fine now will soon be trouble...
MRB:
"Happiness" was my first attempt at a longish poem. I don't count it in my
rankings because it's not a very good poem, but I think I did show a good ear
for meter from the very beginning.
Burch's second longish poem, "Playmates," was about boys who grow up not foreseeing
the dark days that lie ahead. Ironically, that meant the young poet did foresee
the future.
Playmates
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14
WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended ... far, far away ...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.
Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.
Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!
Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.
Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.
Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die ...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.
MRB:
This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English
teacher, Anne Meyers, called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely
the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Happiness" was my first
longish poem and "Playmates" was the second, at least as far as I can
remember. I had written some shorter epigrams and puns, such as "Bible Libel,"
around the same time or a bit earlier, but at that time I wasn't really thinking
of myself as a poet. "Happiness" and "Playmates" were the first important poems
I wrote after deciding to become a poet. There were intervening minor poems, but
they were lost forever when I destroyed all my work in frustration at my lack of
progress. Fortunately, I was able to recover my better poems from memory, other
than "Gone" and "The Seven Stairs." The former is mostly
lost and the latter remains entirely lost.
"Playmates" was originally published by The Lyric.
Scorecard: age 13-14, two publications.
The novel Little Women was an influence on "Playmates."
Other poems from this period include "Time," "Am
I," "An Illusion," "Have I Been Too Long at the Fair," and "Smoke" (the latter a
poem inspired by an ad for the movie Summer of '42.) Burch's poems "Burn,
Ovid" and "Sex 101" were written about his experiences at Faith Christian
Academy in Goldsboro, although they were composed from memory later.
Burch was the
starting center on the FCA junior varsity basketball team.
Smoke
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 13-14
The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...
MRB:
"Smoke" appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun,
in 1977. It has since been published by The Eclectic Muse
(Canada), Fullosia Press and Better Than Starbucks, and
translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte. I had The
Summer of '42 in mind when I wrote the poem. Ironically, I didn't see the movie
until many years later (too young for an R-rated movie according to my parents), but something about its advertisement touched me. Am I
the only poet who wrote a love poem for Jennifer O'Neil after seeing her
fleeting image in a blurb? At least in that respect, I may be unique! In any
case, the movie came out in 1971 or 1972, so I was probably around 14 when
I wrote the poem. I think it's interesting that I was able to write a "rhyme
rich" poem at such a young age. In six lines the poem has 26 rhymes and near
rhymes: smoke-spoke-smoky, well-farewell-tell-bells-still-recall-still,
summer-remember-summer-summer, within-din-in, say-today-days-haze-today-away,
had-good-bad.
There is another, somewhat longer, version of this poem later on this page,
along with two other poems I wrote about the movie that touched me so strangely,
long before I watched it. The other poems are addressed to Hermie, the movie's
teenage protagonist who might have been my nebbish twin, or doppelganger. I
wrote the other poems after seeing the movie as an adult, many years later. On
an interesting note, one of my "youngest poems" was published by one
of England's oldest publishing houses, Sampson Low, in the Lost Love
issue of its Potcake Chapbooks series, edited by Robin Helweg-Larsen and
illustrated by Alban Low.
Scorecard: age 13-14, three publications.
"Smoke" was influenced by ads for The
Summer of '42, by the musical poems of Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred
Tennyson, and by the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by the Platters.
Gone
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14
Tonight, it is dark
and the stars do not shine.
A man who is gone
was a good friend of mine.
We were friends.
And the sky was the strangest shade of orange on gold
when I awoke to find him gone ...
MRB:
"Gone" is actually gone, destroyed in a moment of frustration along
with other poems I have not been able to recreate from memory.
At some point, probably in late 1972 or early 1973, I destroyed all the poems I
had written, out of frustration. I was able to recreate some of the poems from
memory, but not all. "Gone" is the poem that haunts me the most. I have
resurrected a few lines, but the rest appear to be gone completely. Another poem
I regret destroying was titled "The Seven Stairs" and was inspired by one of my
favorite rock songs, "Stairway to Heaven."
The westerns of Zane Grey were the primary inspiration for and influence on
"Gone."
Leave Taking
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 14-15
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.
But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky ...
Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say—
goodbye.
Several of my early poems were about aging, loss and death. Young poets can be
so morbid! As with "Death/Styx" this poem
is the parings of a longer poem. Most of my poems end up being sonnet-length or shorter. I
think the sounds here are pretty good for a young poet "testing his
wings." This poem started out as a stanza in a much
longer poem, "Jessamyn's Song," that dates to around age 14-16. "Leave
Taking"
has been published by The Lyric, Mindful of Poetry, Silver Stork Magazine and There is
Something in the Autumn (an anthology). The longer version appears later on
this page.
"Leave Taking" was influenced by the sadder poems of John Keats and Percy Bysshe
Shelley.
By age 14, I had written four poems that would later be
published by literary journals: "Bible Libel," "Playmates," "Smoke" and "Leave
Taking."
/bookmark/
(**) Am I, circa age 14-15,
*P
by Michael R. Burch
Am I inconsequential;
do I matter not at all?
Am I just a snowflake,
to sparkle, then to fall?
Am I only chaff?
Of what use am I?
Am I just a flame,
to flicker, then to die?
Am I inadvertent?
For what reason am I here?
Am I just a ripple
in a pool that once was clear?
Am I insignificant?
Will time pass me by?
Am I just a flower,
to live one day, then die?
Am I unimportant?
Do I matter either way?
Or am I just an echo—
soon to fade away?
This seems like a pretty well-crafted poem for a teenage poet just getting
started. I believe I was around 14 or 15 when I wrote it. The title is a reversal of
the biblical "I Am."
(**) Time, circa age 14-15, *P
by Michael R. Burch
Time,
where have you gone?
What turned out so short,
had seemed like so long.
Time,
where have you flown?
What seemed like mere days
were years come and gone.
Time,
see what you've done:
for
now I am old,
when once I was young.
Time,
do you even know why
your days, minutes, seconds
preternaturally fly?
"Time" is a companion piece to "Am I." It appeared in my high school project
notebook "Poems" along with "Playmates," so I was probably around 14
or 15 when I
wrote it.
This seems like a pretty well-crafted poem for a teenage poet just getting
started.
"Time" and "Am I" were written on the same day, or
within a short period of time, if I remember correctly. They were among the
earliest of what I call my "I Am" and "Am I" poems.
(**) Bound, circa age 14-15, *L
by Michael R. Burch
Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of the streetlamp casts strange shadows to the ground,
I have lost what I once found
in your arms.
Now it is winter—the coldest night.
And as the light of distant Venus fails to penetrate dark panes,
I have remade all my chains
and am bound.
This poem appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in
1976. I seem to remember writing "Bound" in 1972 or 1973, around age 14 or 15. It was originally
titled "Why Did I Go?" I have made slight changes but
the poem is essentially the same as what I wrote in my early teens.
I believe "Bound" may have been influenced by the Robert Frost poem "Acquainted
with the Night" and the Paul Simon song "I Am a Rock."
(**) Have I been too long at the fair?, circa age 15,
*L
by Michael R. Burch
Have I been too long at the fair?
The summer has faded,
the leaves have
turned brown;
the Ferris wheel teeters ...
not up, yet not down.
Have I been too long at the fair?
This is one of my very earliest poems, written around age 15 when we were living
with my grandfather in his house on Chilton Street, within walking distance of
the Nashville fairgrounds. That was before my sophomore year of high school. I remember walking to the fairgrounds, stopping at a
Dairy Queen along the way, and swimming at a public pool. But I believe the
Ferris wheel only operated during the state fair. So my “educated guess” is that
this poem was written during the 1973 state fair, or shortly thereafter. I
remember watching people hanging suspended in mid-air, waiting for carnies to
deposit them safely on terra firma again. In any case, this poem was
published in my high school literary journal, the Lantern.
I believe A. E. Housman may have been an influence here.
An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch, circa age 15-16
The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.
She came to me with the sound of falling leaves
and the scent of new-mown grass;
I held out my arms to her and she passed
into oblivion ...
This little dream-poem appeared in Burch's high school literary journal, the Lantern.
1973: Tenth grade. Paul Burch Jr. retired from the Air Force and the Burches relocated
permanently to Nashville, Tennessee. There Burch attended Maplewood High School, where
he was once again far ahead of his classmates. It was at
Maplewood that Burch began flipping through his English literature textbook,
reading poems independently. He found some of the poems to be quite magical
and decided that he would try to produce similar magic himself.
Poets he found especially magical included William Blake, e. e. cummings, Robert
Frost, T. S. Eliot, A. E.
Housman, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas and W. B. Yeats. While at Maplewood, Burch
included some of his poems in an English project notebook. His teacher, Anne
Myers, wrote "This poem is beautiful!" beside "Playmates" and she also
complimented "Time." Other poems in the notebook included "Paradise" and "I
Remember You." Around this time, in a moment of frustration, Burch destroyed all
his poems. The ones in his project notebook were saved, along with others
he was able
to recreate from memory. The rest were lost forever or remain incomplete. Burch
had his first dates, with MB.
1974: Eleventh grade. The first poem that made Burch think he
might
be a "real" poet was "Observance" (originally titled "Reckoning"), which he
wrote in the break room of the McDonald's where he worked to make spending
money for college. It would be published by TC
Broadsheet Verses in 1998, earning a whopping ten dollars, and also by
Nebo and Piedmont Literary Review the same year. "Leave Taking" was originally a stanza in a longer poem, "Jessamyn's
Song," written around this time. "Canticle" was written
surreptitiously in Ms. Davenport's class while her back was turned.
Burch was MVP of the Ewing Baptist church league basketball team. Tricky Dick Nixon finally
resigned, due to Watergate.
1975: Twelfth grade. Burch had a number of poems published in
Maplewood's literary journal, The Lantern,
including "An Illusion," "Why Did I Go," "Have I Been Too Long at the Fair" and
"Smoke." Burch also wrote his
first "cummings-ish" poem, "i (dedicated to u)" during an English class. Burch was MVP of the Ewing Baptist
basketball team for a second time.
Meanwhile, Bill
Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft.
1976: College freshman. Burch
graduated near the top of his class despite working 40+ hours per week
his senior year and thus not studying or turning in homework assignments
consistently. He still managed to earn the highest ACT and CLEPT scores in
Maplewood's history, with a perfect score on the latter. He also earned two academic scholarships and decided to
study computer science at Tennessee Technological University (TTU) in
Cookeville, Tennessee, which at that time had a top-ten computer science
program. At TTU the dean of the English Department, Dr. Warren, had Burch pulled
out of the freshman pre-registration line and brought to his office, where he
tried to persuade Burch to major in English or Journalism. However, not wanting to
be a starving writer, Burch stuck
to his plan to major in computer science. At TTU, Burch skipped a lot of classes and focused
his energies on mastering pool (pocket billiards), pinball machines and video games, including the original
Space Invaders. He
won TTU's straight pool tournament, qualified for the NCAA regionals,
but then partied, got drunk for the first time in his life, and missed the bus
to the next tournament! The girl of his dreams got mad at him for being too
drunk to perform, and he lost her to a slightly more sober graduate student.
Ouch! He later won Cookeville eight-ball and Space Invaders
tournaments. Poems from this period include "Infinity" (the second
poem that made Burch feel like a "real" poet), "Death/Styx"
and "These Hallowed Halls." The latter was written from his freshman dorm
window, as he watched students returning from rush week fraternity parties.
"Something" was the first poem Burch wrote that
didn't rhyme; it came to him "out of blue nothing." He also earned membership in the Alpha Lamda Delta and Phi Kappa Phi honor
societies. As a freshman Burch had six poems
published in TTU's literary journal Homespun: "Smoke," "Stryx," "Gentry," "Jack," "When Last My
Love Left Me" and "With My Daughter, By a Waterfall."
1977: College sophomore. A highly Romantic poem from this time period is "Floating," which would be
published by Romantics Quarterly in 2002. Another is "Impressions of
Darkness in the Aspects of Light," a long poem Burch disguised as prose by
removing the line breaks for a creative fiction writing assignment.
"A Pledge for Ignorance" was the first poem published in Homespun. "In Jerusalem" was also published
by Homespun.
1978: College co-op. Burch won TTU's R. H. Moorman Award and a cash prize (well,
actually a bond) for having the
highest grades in the TTU Math/Computer Science/Physics department. He was the
brightest of the bright, the nerdiest of the nerds!
Burch chose to co-op for a year, which he did with South
Central Bell, in Nashville. At the time SCB was a division of AT&T, the largest
non-government organization in the world. Burch wrote a manual on IBM Binary
Synchronous Protocol for SCB. He also designed and wrote a network outage
tracking system on a Cromemco Z-28 CP/M computer system. This was one of the first multi-user
microcomputers. John Palmer, a division manager
at SCB, was impressed and hired Burch to work for
Surya Data Systems, where he designed and wrote a Property Management software
package. While working for SCB, Burch met
some serious pool players and started gambling with colorful sharks
like Andrew "the Gent" Gentry, Doug "Preacher" Almy, and players known to him
only as "Jew Baby," "Catfish," "Chicken Man" and "Mole." There
were days when
Burch made more money hustling pool than programming. He used the winnings from one
pool match to buy a $700 pool cue. A highly Romantic poem from this
time period is "The Communion of Sighs." While working the midnight shift at
SCB, Burch put together a typed poetry collection, Just a Dream. Some
of the poems included were "Reflections on the Loss of Vision," "Shadows," "An
Obscenity Trial," "Sailor's Dreams" (later re-titled "Sea Dreams"), "Sanctuary
at Dawn," "There Is Peace Where I Am Going" and "Jessamyn's Song."
(These were
mostly poems written during his teens.) Burch wrote his bleak poem "Premonition" after
attending an SCB office party. "Shadows" was published
by
Homespun.
1979: Burch returned to TTU for his junior year. He joined the Kappa Alpha
fraternity but it was not officially recognized at the time and was mostly an
excuse to have a frat house and keg parties. After completing his junior year, Burch dropped out to start his
own computer software company, Alpha Omega Consulting Group. He earned over 11K.
That was not bad money in
those days, for a college student working part-time!
1980: College senior drop-out. Burch became the lead software developer for Computer Consultants Inc.,
freelanced via Alpha Omega, and still found time to shoot pool, master video
games, and chase women. He had his first serious relationship
with MM, who would become the object of a number of his
early love poems. For the next decade-and-a-half Burch would write poetry with
few serious attempts to publish it. During this period Burch designed and wrote software
for a record outlet and a publishing company.
1981: The only published poem from this period appears to be "Tomb Lake." Burch designed
and wrote an Auto Dealership software package.
Burch went to Chattanooga with Doug "Preacher" Almy to watch the 1981 U.S. Open Nine-Ball
Tournament. "St. Louis" Louie Roberts won, beating Buddy "The
Rifleman" Hall
in the process. Burch would later edit a book, Have Pool Cue Will Travel,
written primarily about the exploits of Louie Roberts by Mark "the Shark"
O'Brien. A number of unusual synchronicities were involved. Burch dated MJ briefly.
1982: Burch designed and wrote a Job Cost accounting software system for
construction companies. He bought
a Camaro Z-28 Indy Pace car, his first sports car. He vacationed in England for a
month, staying with relatives at an ancient cottage called "Throstle's
Nest." On the plane trip to England he updated his poem "The Last Enchantment."
He dated MC briefly, then MM, for whom he wrote "Every Man Has a Dream."
1983: Burch dated MM seriously. They decided to live together, but she
didn't tell her parents. Awkward! Burch buys his first house at 836 Beech Bend Drive in Bellevue,
Tennessee.
1984: Burch, MM, DF and RF vacation in Destin at a swanky
$450,000 Edgewater Beach condo. Burch figures out from the owner list that
Nashville's mayor, the appropriately-named Bill Boner, had been "gifted" a condo
by one of Burch's well-heeled construction clients. Fraud is everywhere!
1985: Burch, MM, DF and RF vacation in Miami and the Florida Keys. They visit
Ernest Hemingway's and Jimmy Buffet's favorite watering holes. Burch begins playing pool
at a dive-y bar called Springwater. Later that year, his first dates with CC.
1986: Springwater's Busch pool
league team finished second in the city tournament, advanced to Memphis for
the regionals, won two rounds, then lost in the finals to Nashville's J.O.B.
team.
A Memphis vacation with MM. Burch dated BM and wrote "Musings at Giza"
based on her recollections of a trip to Egypt. First date with SK at Julian's.
Burch very briefly dated Dan Fouts' sister but couldn't tell you her name.
1987: Oak Ridge trip with BM. First date with KT at Kobe, but she was weird
about her cat. One date with a young woman who later took her own life led to
the poem "For Rhonda with Butterflies."
Destin trip with KT, but more weirdness about her cat. First date with AO; she
was part Cuban, part Seminole, and part Italian. Very hot! Another England trip
with bed-and-breakfast tours of Wales, Stratford-on-Avon, Chesterfield, Chatsworth
Hall and London. On the return flight from Gatwick the pilot had
to jettison fuel and return for flap repairs. Panic! MM moves out.
1988: Back together with MM. Burch bought a second, much bigger house in Bellevue at 7324 River Bend
Rd. Movin' on up!
1989: Destin trip with MM, DF, RF and two friends. MM moves out again.
1990: MM moves back in, then out again. A third England trip with a bed-and-breakfast tour of Scotland
and the northeastern coast: Loch
Lomond, Stirling Castle, Calendar, Edinburgh Castle, North Berwick, Lindisfarne.
Also visited the Lake District, Lake Windermere, York, Yorkminster Cathedral, Scarborough (stayed in a converted windmill!), the
Yorkshire Dales, and Alton Towers. It was the hottest English summer on record, with
temperatures as high as 99. Dates with KM, LA and
RA.
1991: Burch meets Elizabeth Harris on 1-5-1991 at the Natchez Trace bar in Bellevue,
Tennessee. She asks him to teach her to play pool and they invent "twister
pool." First real date with Beth at Sperry's on 1-11-1991.
Burch writes Beth the poems "Enigma" and "Is the Mirror Unkind" for
Valentine's Day. Another date at Sperry's. Met Beth's
grandparents at Justine's in Memphis. Things are getting serious for the
confirmed bachelor! Later, a May trip to Destin with Beth and Burch's parents,
sisters, aunts and uncles. Beth moves in. Chattanooga
trip with Beth and English cousins. Visited Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls and the
Chattanooga Choo-Choo. Beth sang "Mockingbird" with one of the singing waiters.
A very daring girl! On 8-31-91 Beth asked Burch to marry her! A
very daring girl! On 11-07-91 Grandma Lee
died, a grand, very independent woman.
1992: Michael R. Burch marries Elizabeth Steed Harris in Warren, Arkansas on 6-27-1992.
1993: Michael R. Burch and Elizabeth Harris Burch have a son, Jeremy Michael
Burch. Burch's poems "The Desk," "Lullaby," "Passages on Fatherhood" and "A Real
Story," among others, would be written for his son.
Burch began submitting poems for publication after a long hiatus.
"Musings at Giza" was published by Golden Isis, "In the Whispering
Night" and "Moon Lake" by The Poetic Knight.
1994: "Lay Down Your Arms" was published by The Romanticist.
1997: Burch began to study the ancient Celtic legends that inspired the much
later, heavily Christianized legends of King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of
the Round Table. He preferred the older stories and wrote a cycle of poems on the
subject, including "At Tintagel," "Truces" and "Isolde's Song." A number of
the poems were written on a single day, 7-13-1997. Burch thinks his poems are good
enough to be published, but where to submit them? Around this time he discovers
a book, Poet's Market, created by the poet Judson Jerome, which explains
which journals favor, rather than discriminate against, traditional poetry.
Burch
decides to take another stab at publication ...
1998: Around this time Burch founds and creates
The HyperTexts, a literary website
which has since had over 13 million page views, according to Google Analytics.
"Geode/Resemblance" was published by Poet Lore, "Righteous" by
Writer's Gazette, "Are You the Thief" and two other poems by Poetic
License/Monumental Moments, "Shadows" by Mind in Motion, "Enigma"
by mo jo risin' magazine, "State of the Art" and five other poems by
Tucumcari Poetry Review, and "Haunted" by The Laureate Letter.
"Keep Up" wins third prize and a medal in a poetry contest with
several thousand entries.
1999: "In Flight Convergence" finished in the top
ten of the big Writer's Digest
non-rhyming poetry contest (out of around 13,000 overall contest entries), then
was published by The Aurorean and
nominated for the Pushcart Prize. (Ironically, it was a rhyming
poem with eclectic line breaks that made it look like unrhymed free verse.)
"Once," "At Once," "Twice" and "The Leveler"
were published by The Lyric.
Jean Mellichamp Milliken, the editor of The Lyric, called Burch on the
phone to make sure his poems made the upcoming issue. Editors seldom call poets, so
that was a rare and encouraging event! "The Poet" was published by Icon, "Prophet" by
Penny Dreadful, "The Song of Amergin" by Songs of Innocence, "Ince
St. Child" by Piedmont Literary Review.
"Geode/Resemblance" was a finalist in the Penumbra poetry contest and
earned a special mention from the judge. "Salad Days" was published by
Lonzie's Fried Chicken. The poem would later be re-titled "Salat Days." Eight poems
were
published by Tucumcari Literary Review, including "For Rhonda, with
Butterflies."
2000: "Abide" was published by Light Quarterly. "Tremble"
was published
by The Lyric and later received an Honorable Mention in the 2000
Lyric Annual Awards, judged by Shakespearean scholar Caroline P. Chermside.
"Tremble" also won third prize in the Verses Magazine 2000 Nature
Competition. "Once" and "The Platypus" were published by Writer's Journal,
"Styx/Death" and "The Harvest of Roses" by The Raintown Review, "Loose
Knit" by Penumbra, "Moments" by Tucumcari Literary Journal, "Infinity,"
"Floating," "Mid-Summer Eve," "Shock" and "Nevermore!" by Penny Dreadful,
"At Tintagel" and "In the Whispering Night" by Songs of Innocence,
"Salad Days" by Harp-Strings Poetry Journal, and nineteen Celtic-themed
poems by Celtic Twilight, Celtic Lifestyles and
Storyteller (UK).
2001: Burch had the first five poems in the
inaugural issue of Romantics Quarterly,
which led off with "Goddess." Burch's villanelle "Ordinary Love" won the
Swinburne poetry award and a $100 prize, then was published and nominated for the Pushcart
Prize. Burch had seventeen poems in the first four issues of
Romantics Quarterly. "What the Poet Sees" and "The Locker" won Poem
Kingdom contests and small cash prizes. "Poetry" and "The Watch"
were
published by The Lyric, "The Composition of Shadows" by Iambs &
Trochees, "What the Poet Sees" by Byline, "Memory" by
Carnelian, and "Will There Be Starlight" by The Word (UK).
Four poems each appeared in The Bible of Hell,
Poetry Magazine and Unlikely Stories. "Flight 93" and four other
poems were published by Poetry Super Highway. Two poems appeared in
Ironwood, two in Poetic Reflections, three in Poetically
Speaking, four in Poetry Magazine.
2002: Burch wrote a how-to book for Practicum Strategies that earned
nearly $3,000 in royalties. "Pan" and "Imperfect Sonnet"
were published by
Poetry Porch. Four poems were read by Burch for the How Sweet the Night
spoken-word
poetry CD published by Romantics Quarterly: "Ordinary Love," "Goddess,"
"Circe" and "She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful." Burch also helped acquire
readings by other poets for the CD, including Richard Moore and Rhina Espaillat. "Redolence" appeared in
The New Formalist and "She Gathered Lilacs" in the Neovictorian/Cochlea.
"The Watch" and two other poems appeared in Carnelian. Burch
was the
spotlight poet for and had eight poems in Triplopia. Four poems appeared in
The Eclectic Muse; editor Joe M. Ruggier recited one of the poems over
the phone to another editor. (Another rare event.) "Warming Her Pearls" and two other erotic poems
appeared in Erosha. Burch was the first featured poet with five poems in
Poetic Ponderings. Eight poems were published by the Net Poetry & Art
Competition, which asked Burch to serve as a judge. "She Was Very Strange, and
Beautiful" was published by Numbat (Australia). Nine poems appeared in two
issues of The Lyric, including "Frail Envelope of Flesh," "The Wonder Boys" and "Roses for a
Lover, Idealized." An early prose version of "Salat Days" won an honorable
mention in the 2002 Writer's Digest personal essay contest.
2003: "See" placed third out of 18,000 overall entries in the big Writer's
Digest poetry contest, while "At Wilfred Owen's Grave" placed seventh,
winning $475 together. Both poems appeared in Writer's Digest The Year's Best
Writing. "Distances" and "Fair Game" appeared in Verse Libre.
Seventeen poems and two reviews appeared in Romantics Quarterly. "At
Tintagel" was published by Fables.org, "Ordinary Love" by
Poetic Voices. "At Wilfred Owen's Grave" by Rogue
Scholars, "Violets" and four other poems by Muse Apprentice
Guild. Four poems appeared in the anthology The Birth of Crystals.
"The Peripheries of Love" earned second place in a poetry
contest, winning a silver medal. "She Was Very Strange and Beautiful" placed
third in a People's Poet reader poll.
2004: "Auschwitz Rose" appeared in the Neovictorian/Cochlea. The poem
made Joe Ruggier jump out of his bus seat when he read it! (Another rare
event.) "The Composition of
Shadows" appeared in Contemporary Rhyme, "Neglect" and four other
poems in Mindful of Poetry, "The Folly of Wisdom" and five other
poems in Romantics Quarterly, "Neglect" and "Epitaph"
in Voices for Africa, "The Highest Atoll" in
IBPC News and Useless Knowledge, "Fahr an' Ice" in Light Quarterly,
eight poems in Poet's Haven,
three poems and a review in The Eclectic Muse (Canada).
2005: "Pan" and five other poems appeared in The Chariton Review, "Pity
Clarity" in Contemporary Rhyme and the Columbus Dispatch
newspaper, "Myth" and three other poems in the anthology There Is
Something in the Autumn, "Pfennig Postcard, Wrong Address" in the
Holocaust anthology Blood to Remember, "Ali's Song" and four other
poems in Black Medina, six poems in Nutty Stories
(South Africa), three in Triplopia, eight in The Eclectic Muse
(Canada), eleven in the Neovictorian/Cochlea. "Melting" is voted the best poem in
SP Quill.
2006: "Isolde's Song" is published by
The Raintown Review and nominated for the Pushcart
Prize. "Excerpts from 'Poetry'" places fourth in the Margaret
Reid poetry contest, winning $100. A number of Burch's poems are translated into
Farsi and published in Iran. "Tremble" and "Brother Iran" appear in Farsi
translations by Dr. Mahnaz Badihian on MahMag (Iran). Six poems are
published by Kritya (India). Poetry Life & Times begins to
publish Burch's poems in volume. Thirty of Burch's poems are featured at
Famous Poets & Poems. Sixteen poems appear in Sonnetto Poesia
(Canada). "The Effects of Memory" is read as part of the Candlelight Reading
Series, on Valentine's Day. "U.S. Verse, After Auden" is published by
The Barefoot Muse, "Salat Days" as flash fiction in A
Flasher's Dozen, "Learning to Fly" in the anthology The
Book of Hopes and Dreams. Burch has three poems in The Centrifugal Eye,
five poems in Barbitos, four poems in a Katrina Anthology
and six poems in The Journals. "Indestructible, for Johnny Cash" is
published by Strong Verse. "Flight 93" appears in My Beautiful New
York. Four poems appear in the anthology Somewhere Along the Beaten
Path. "The Secret of Her Clothes" appears in the Velvet Avalanche
anthology. "The Composition of Shadows" is published by Candelabrum.
2007: "Break Time" finishes third in a Sonnet Writers poetry contest,
winning $50. "Leaf Fall" earns high distinction in the Tom Howard poetry contest
and wins $100. A children's poem "The Aery Faery Princess" appears in Whimsy.
Another children's poem, "The Dromedary," appears in Umbrella/Bumbershoot.
"For All That I Remembered" and "The Peripheries of Love" are translated into
Russian by Yelena Dubrovin and published by Gostinaya. Burch has three
poems in Thanal Online (India), four poems in the Anthology of
Contemporary American Poetry, four poems in the anthology Captivating
Poetry, five poems in Strange Road, three poems in Triplopia,
three poems in Freshet, and six poems in Other Voices International,
including the Holocaust poems "Cleansings" and "Auschwitz Rose." Poets for
Humanity publishes "Epitaph for a Darfur Child." Voices Israel
publishes "I Pray Tonight." (The poem will later go viral.) Deronda Review publishes "Leaf Fall,"
"Autumn Conundrum" and "Piercing the Shell." Nine poems are published by
homeless advocate, poet and artist Judy "Joy" Jones as part of an On the
Road with Judy interview. "Poetry" appears in the anthology Sailing in
the Mist of Time.
2008: "Discrimination" is published by
Trinacria and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
"Mother's Smile" places first in a Penguin Books (UK) Valentine's Day poetry contest and
appears in the anthology Poems for Big Kids. Comasia Aquaro translates
"For All That I Remembered" and "Isolde's Song" into Italian. "Homeless Us" is
published by Street Spirit. Fullosia Press publishes "Flight
93" and two other poems. Jewish Letter publishes Russian translations
by Vera Zubarev of "Leaf Fall" and other poems. Two poems appear in Deronda
Review and Voices Israel, three in Freshet and The
Eclectic Muse (Canada), four in Trinacria, six in Poetry Life
& Times.
2009: Burch's letter opposing torture is published
by TIME and quite possibly read by millions.
Burch publishes Richard Moore's last essay, "A Life." Burch's tribute poem "Kin
(for Richard Moore)" is published by Able Muse. The Boston Globe
cites Burch's interviews with Richard Moore in his obituary. "Auschwitz Rose" is
published by Verse Weekly. "Leaf Fall" appears in The Raintown
Review, now being edited by Anna Evans. Burch begins writing letters to the
editor of The Tennessean; three of his first four letters earn three
stars (the highest rating). He will have over a hundred letters published by the
paper over
the next decade. He also has a letter in one of the world's largest-circulation
newspapers, The Hindu. Burch has two poems in Light, two in
The Lyric, two in The Chimaera, three in Freshet,
three in Lucid Rhythms.
2010: Burch authors the Burch-Elberry Peace
Initiative for Israel/Palestine and it is published by United Progressives and
the National Forum of India, among others. Burch has five
letters in Nashville's City Paper and is invited to become a regular
columnist, which he accepts. He has one letter in USA Today, three
in The Washington Times, and 35 more in The Tennessean. Burch's
essay on Formal Poetry is translated into Vietnamese and published by Ai Huu
Ninh Thuan. His poem "Epitaph" goes viral and is published 400 times before
he loses track. Stremez publishes five Macedonian translations
by Marija Girevska. Fullosia Press publishes twenty poems and essays.
Litera (UK) publishes seventeen poems. Poems About publishes thirty
poems. Burch has three poems in Freshet, six in Trinacria, and
six more in The New Formalist.
2011: "Just Smile" is published by
Victorian Violet Press and nominated for the
Pushcart Prize. This is Burch's fifth Pushcart nomination.
Fullosia Press publishes 29 poems and articles. Six letters are published
by the Knoxville News Sentinel. Forty letters and articles are
published by the Nashville City Paper. Twenty-seven poems are published
by Inspirational Stories, six by Trinacria, six by
Victorian Violet Press, five by The Eclectic Muse (Canada), three by
The Flea, two by The Lyric. "For Rhonda, with Butterflies" is
nominated for a Best of the Net award by Victorian Violet Press.
2012: Burch's first poetry collection,
Violets for Beth, is published by White Violet
Press. Burch has two poems in the first issue of Angle.
Six poems are published by Poem Today, six by Victorian Violet
Press, eight by Artvilla, eight by Poet's Corner
including a translation of "Caedmon's Hymn," ten by
The Eclectic Muse (Canada), fifteen by Fullosia Press. Five
letters appear in the Knoxville News Sentinel, eight in The
Tennessean. Burch's "bowlers" joke is published by the Washington Post.
"Come!" earns fifth place in the 2012 Writer's Digest Rhyming Poetry
contest, winning $50. "Hiroshima Shadows" is translated to
Thai and published in Thailand, Japan and New Zealand.
2013: Burch's second poetry collection,
O, Terrible Angel, is published by Ancient
Cypress Press. Burch's translation of Rilke's "Autumn Day"
appears in Measure, along with his translations of the Anglo-Saxon poem
"Wulf and Eadwacer" and the Middle English poem "How Long the Night." Eight poems appear in Boston Poetry Magazine, eleven in
FreeExpression (Australia), twelve in Complete Classics, twelve in
Poems About, fourteen in Poetry in Progress, five in
Fullosia Press, four in Shot Glass Journal. "Willy Nilly" appears
in The Road Not Taken, "Lean Harvests" in The Rotary
Dial. Thirty letters and/or
articles appear in the Nashville City Paper. Ten letters appear in
The Tennessean.
2014: Burch publishes his translations/modernizations of Scots dialect poems
by Robert Burns, and they quickly go viral. By now Burch's poems are going viral so frequently that he seldom bothers to
submit poems to traditional publishers. "Epitaph," "Neglect," "Something," and
"Auschwitz Rose" are among his most popular poems on the Internet, along with
his translations of Basho, Bede, Bertolt Brecht, Robert Burns, Caedmon, Thomas
Chatterton, Deor, William Dunbar, Ahmad Faraz, Atilla Ilhan, Allama Iqbal, Ono
no Komachi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sappho, Thomas Wyatt, and various Urdu and
anonymous Anglo-Saxon poets.
2015: Jasper Sole does YouTube readings of "Something," "Moments" and "Enigma."
Promosaik (Denmark) publishes six poems. Poem Today publishes
four poems. Life & Legends publishes three poems. Asses of
Parnassus publishes "Nun Fun Undone" and a Sappho translation. Brief
Poems publishes a Sappho translation. AZquotes publishes fourteen
Trump jokes and epigrams.
2016: BBC Radio 3 publishes
Burch's translations of 14 poems by the immortal Sappho of Lesbos which were
recited by actresses Diana Quick and Sophie Ward. Two of
Burch's Trump jokes are published on CNN.com. A number of other jokes go viral
and are published on various "best Trump joke" pages. Asses of Parnassus
publishes six poems. Better Than Starbucks publishes four poems.
Brief Poems publishes six poems. "Conformists of a Feather" wins first
place in the National Poetry Month Couplet Competition. "Pilgrim's Fealty"
finishes second in a quatrain contest. "Isolde's Song" is published by The
Orchards. Comasia Aquaro translates four poems into Italian and publishes
them in La Luce Che Non Muore. Glass Facets of Poetry
publishes five poems. "Child of 9-11" and an essay appear in Elephant
Journal.
2017: Burch's mock "Trump Inauguration Speech" is published by the
Washington Post, earning some raves and a special mention by the editor in
charge of the competition. Burch is the Spotlight Author of the bilingual
literary journal Setu for the month of March, 2017. "I Pray Tonight" is
set to music and played at a benefit concert for the victims of Hurricane
Harvey, helping to raise $8,000 in aid.
2018: "Auschwitz Rose" is published by the European Union Erasmus Project and is
studied by advanced students from multiple member nations. "Ebb Tide" appears in Southwest Review, earning $50. Burch's googleyup "Does your virginity grow back?" earns second place in a
Washington Post contest. (This had more to do with "thinking outside the
box" than writing.) AZquotes has now published more than 40 poems
and epigrams. Brief Poems publishes 15 poems, including translations of
Sappho, Basho and Ono no Komachi. Better Than Starbucks publishes five
original poems and five translations, including a translation of Adi Wolfson's
environmental poem "Bureaucracy." Blue Unicorn publishes "Styx"
and "A
Possible Argument for Mercy" is accepted for publication by First Things.
2019: Better Than Starbucks publishes "Salat Days" and three Native
American translations. Bewildering Stories publishes five poems,
including Holocaust poetry translations of Paul Celan's "Death Fugue" and "O,
Little Root." Poem Today publishes three haiku translations. Six poems
are translated into Hungarian by István Bagi and published by Versforditas
(Hungary). "If You Come to San Miguel" is published by Muddy River Poetry
Review. "Excerpts from the Journal of Dorian Gray" is published by Dusk
& Shiver Magazine. PoemSeeker.com publishes 32 poems. Engpoetry.com
publishes 25 poems. Oxford University called The HyperTexts "dynamic
and challenging" with a "different approach" to poetry, on its ARCH resource
page for the Arts & Humanities.
"How Can We End Ethnic Cleansing Forever?" is studied by a class taught by
the poet
Michael Seeger. More than a
hundred Burch poems have gone viral at this point. YouTube videos by Lillian Y.
Wong of "Ali's Song," "Something" and "Survivors" have several thousand views
each.
2020: Including poems that have gone viral, Burch now has over 5,000
publications and begins calling himself "one of the world's most-published
complete unknowns." Burch is asked to join the board of the international
literary publication Borderless Journal and accepts.
2021: Burch has the first five poems in the first issue of New Lyre.
2022: Including poems that have gone viral, Burch now has over 7,000
publications. Burch also has 41 poems set to music by 23 composers, poems
translated into 15 languages, and has been quoted or otherwise cited in 404
scholarly articles on Academia.edu. Benjamin Jones publishes a book, Pete
Rose Unforgiven Forever, based on Burch's extensive article about Pete Rose on The
HyperTexts, often quoting the article at length, verbatim.
2023: The Anti-Defamation League in partnership with the Aspen Institute
publishes Burch's translation of "Enough for Me" by Fadwa Tuqan in a 115-page
booklet that is used in conjunction with a series of seminars in Jerusalem,
Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jaffa in January 2023. Burch has his 50th poem set to
music or otherwise used by a composer. Burch now has 2,020 individual poems
published and 8,997 publications in all, not including poems he has
self-published. Many of the publications are poems that have gone viral on the
internet. Burch also has his 15th poetry contest winner, 31st top ten, and 68th
award in a writing contest. Poem Analysis includes Burch's translation
of William Dunbar's "Sweet Rose of Virtue" in its top ten Valentine's Day Poems.
The Burch-Elberry Peace Initiative is mentioned by Theo Horesh in The
Holocausts We All Deny. Four Burch translations are published by Daily
Kos. "Lay Down Your Arms" is slated to be set to music by Eduardo Agni.
Helena Loorents of Mona da Vinci sets "For a Palestinian Child with Butterflies" to music. Joshua
C. DeLozier sets Burch's translation of "Admiring Flowers" to music.
2024: Burch wins his 16th poetry contest, with 69 placements in writing
contests, and has his 61st poem set to music or otherwise used by a composer.
Burch's poem "The Blobfish Speaks" is translated into Farsi by Dr. Mahnaz
Badihian and published by MahMag. Publications in Bulgaria, Ethiopia,
Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Singapore, Sweden, Ukraine and Vietnam. Burch
passes 11,000 publications not including self-publications. Burch begins
publishing his poems and translations on Substack. He has over 50 million page views on Quora and over 16
million views on The HyperTexts.
Notes for Archivists, Anthologists, Biographers and Scholars:
When I count publications, I do NOT include poems that I have published myself
via The HyperTexts, or poems that I have posted on websites like
AllPoetry, HelloPoetry, PoemHunter, PoetrySoup, Quora, and WritersCafe. If I
counted those publications, I would have substantially higher numbers, but I
only count publications made by others. Why did I self-publish with the sites I
just mentioned? First, my goal as a writer was always to be read, and I make no
apologies for that. These large websites attract large numbers of readers and I
believe that, because my poetry is much better than that of the "average bear,"
I had a distinct edge and was smart enough to take
advantage of it. If the literary elitists disapprove, so what? I would much
rather be read than have the approval of uppity snots. Second, because I knew I
wouldn't be around forever and wouldn't have control over THT when I was gone.
Replicating my poems on multiple websites was a way of "backing up" my poems and
creating redundant copies of them. I make no apologies for giving my poems the
best chance to survive me and to be read in the future.
When I am no longer alive, I intend for my writings to be put in the public
domain for noncommercial purposes. If there are profits, royalties should go to
my estate and heirs. But if people like my work enough to share it, and aren't
profiting financially, let them share away.
If you are a biographer, it may interest you to know that I was incredibly
ambitious as a poet in my early teens. I didn't just want to be a poet, I wanted
to be a poet future readers would remember, the way I remembered my favorite
poets. I wanted to be a great poet, a "capital p" Poet. Whether I succeeded or
not, only time can tell, only the future can say. While self-praise is a dubious
enterprise, I will say that I think some of my Sappho translations are the best
ones out there, and major poets have translated her over the centuries. I think
my Basho and Issa translations are some of the best out there, and they have
been widely translated also. Ditto for my translations of Baudelaire, Burns,
Brecht, Dunbar, Radnoti, Rilke, Tagore, and any number of Urdu poets.
If you have access to my computer files, the critical files are Submit*.wpd (the
poems in their final forms as they were submitted for publication),
WorkInProgress*.wpd (the original and revised versions of nearly all my poems
not in Submit.wpd),
and Poem.dbf (a database of when and where my poems were published). There are
also multiple versions of my unpublished book Auschwitz Rose, with the one with the most
current time stamp being the most critical.
CORRECTIONS AND CONTROVERSIES
I respond to scurrilous charges of "antisemitism" here:
Charges of
antisemitism by character assassins.
Michael R. Burch related pages:
Best Poems,
Best Translations,
Poetry Master Page,
Poems Set to Music by Composers,
Literary Criticism,
Critical Writings,
Literary Devices: Definitions and Examples,
Early Poems,
Early Poems Timeline,
Bemused by Muses,
Viral
Poems,
Poems for Poets,
Epigrams and Quotes,
Epitaphs,
Sonnets,
Villanelles,
Light Verse,
Limericks,
Parodies,
Satires,
Less
Heroic Couplets,
Children's Poems,
Family Poems,
Doggerel,
Haiku,
Nature and Animal Poems,
Free Verse,
Prose Poems,
Experimental Poems,
Free Love Poems,
Romantic Poems,
Erotic Poems,
Song Lyrics,
Poems about Time and Death,
Poems about EROS and CUPID,
Poems about Icarus,
Auschwitz Rose Preview,
Did Lord Byron inspire the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley?,
Understatement Examples from Shakespeare and Elsewhere,
Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs,
Sulpicia Translations,
Why I Am Not A Christian by Michael R. Burch
You can find Burch's analysis of his poems here: "Auschwitz Rose" Analysis,
"Epitaph" Analysis,
"Something" Analysis,
"Will There Be Starlight" Analysis,
"Sweet Rose of Virtue" Analysis,
"Davenport Tomorrow" Analysis,
"Neglect" Analysis,
"Passionate One" Analysis,
"Self Reflection" Analysis,
"Pale Though Her Eyes" Analysis,
"Thin Kin" Analysis
Individual poems and collections by Michael R. Burch: "Jessamyn's Song"
Michael R. Burch Main Translation Page & Index:
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch
The Best Poetry Translations of Michael R. Burch (sans links)
Translation Pages by Language:
English Translations of Anglo-Saxon Poems by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Female Chinese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of French Poets by Michael R. Burch
Germane Germans: English Translations by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of German Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Greek Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Japanese Zen Death Poems
English Translations of Ancient Mayan Love Poems
English Translations of Native American Poems, Proverbs and Blessings
English Translations of Roman, Latin and Italian Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Scottish Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Spanish Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Tamil Poets
English Translations of Urdu Poets by Michael R. Burch
English Translations of Uyghur Poets by Michael R. Burch
Translation Pages in Roughly Chronological Order:
Enheduanna (circa 2285 BC) the first poet we know by name
The Love Song of Shu-Sin: The Earth's Oldest Love Poem?
Ancient Egyptian Harper's Songs
Ancient Japanese Waka and Haiku
Ancient Greek Epigrams and Epitaphs
English Translations of Greek Poets by Michael R. Burch
Sappho of Lesbos (circa 600 BC) Longer Poems
Sappho of Lesbos Shorter Poems and Fragments
Antipater of Sidon (circa 150 BC)
Sulpicia Translations (circa 100 AD)
Martial Translations (circa 100 AD)
Song of Amergin (?) possibly the oldest poem from the English isles
Anglo-Saxon Poems
Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Kennings
Medieval Poetry Translations (658-1486)
Caedmon's Hymn (circa 658 AD) the oldest extant English poem
Bede's Death Song (circa 735 AD)
Ono no Komachi (circa 850 AD)
Deor's Lament (circa 890 AD)
Wulf and Eadwacer (circa 950 AD)
The Wife's Lament (circa 950 AD)
The Husband's Message (circa 950 AD)
The Ruin (circa 950 AD)
The Seafarer (circa 950 AD)
The Rhyming Poem (circa 950 AD)
Now skruketh rose and lylie flour (circa 1000 AD) is an early English rhyming poem
Middle English Poems
How Long the Night (circa 1200 AD)
Ballads
Sumer is Icumen in (circa 1250 AD)
Fowles in the Frith (circa 1250 AD)
Ich am of Irlaunde (circa 1250 AD)
Now Goeth Sun Under Wood (circa 1250 AD)
Pity Mary (circa 1250 AD)
Urdu Poetry (1253-present)
Amir Khusrow (1253-1325)
Dante (circa 1300 AD)
This World's Joy (circa 1300 AD)
Adam Lay Ybounden (circa 1400 AD)
Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1400 AD)
I Have a Yong Suster (circa 1430 AD)
Charles d'Orleans (circa 1450 AD)
MICHELANGELO (1475-1564)
Sweet Rose of Virtue (circa 1500 AD)
Lament for the Makaris (circa 1500 AD)
Whoso List to Hunt (1503-1542)
Tom O'Bedlam's Song (circa 1600 AD)
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Yosa Buson (1716-1764)
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1769) the first English Romantic poet
Ho Xuan Huong
(1772-1882)
Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869)
Tegner's Drapa (1820)
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
Allama Iqbal (1877-1938)
Ber Horvitz (1895-1942)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944)
Primo Levi (1919-1987)
Paul Celan (1920-1970)
Jaun Elia (1931-2002)
Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008)
The following are links to other translations by Michael R. Burch:
Fukuda Chiyo-ni
Meleager
Oriental Masters of Haiku
Rainer Maria Rilke
Marina Tsvetaeva
Renée Vivien
Allama Iqbal
Sandor Marai
Wladyslaw Szlengel
Saul Tchernichovsky
Robert Burns: Original Poems and Translations
The Seventh Romantic: Robert Burns
The following are links to other Michael R. Burch poetry pages:
Poetry by Michael R. Burch
Free Love Poems by Michael R. Burch
My Influences by Michael R. Burch
Michael R. Burch Early Poems Timeline
Michael R. Burch Longer Poems and Translations
Bemused by Muses
Poems for Poets
Timeline of Rhyme
The World's Greatest Poets
Michael R. Burch Free Verse
Best Poetry Translations sans links
The HyperTexts