If You Can Tell

From a National Book Award finalist: “If You Can Tell beautifully traces the life of a boy . . . An exquisite search for meaning common to every human soul.” —Victoria E. Sanchez, The Harvard Crimson

If You Can Tell, the new book of poems by James McMichael, a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006, takes up what it might mean that the word was in the beginning, before which there may not have been “empty / space, / even, / nor the thought of it.” A baby is conceived after a verbal exchange between his parents. He’s born and learns to talk. Told that the grandfather he cherishes has died, he unknowingly silences any memory of the man. To his Sunday school class a few years later, he tells the lie that he himself was born in China. The boy grows up into a vexing faith. Though he expects his own death will be final, God is no less God to him in the life he’s been given and must in time give back.

“If I could pray, this book would be my prayer book.” —Alan Shapiro, author of Against Translation

“The poetry of James McMichael doesn’t just embody thought—it is thinking itself: sharp, sensitive, and unrelenting, both engaged with the world and uniquely individual. I don’t know of a poet since Elizabeth Bishop whose mind on the page is as surprising and accessible at the same time. If You Can Tell explores where our lives come from and where they go with craft, range, and deep insight.” —Don Bogen, author of Immediate Song