Michelle Bitting

Michelle Bitting (born February, 1964 in Los Angeles, California) is an American poet who was honored on March 8, 2012 with the position of Poet Laureate of Pacific Palisades, California. {

A fourth generation Pacific Palisadian, Michelle Bitting studied theater at the University of California, Berkeley and pursued careers in dance and culinary arts before turning her focus to writing in 2001. She received her MFA in writing and poetry from Pacific University, Oregon in 2009.

Bitting is the author of three collections of poetry: Notes to the Beloved (Winner of the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award, 2011), Good Friday Kiss (C&R Press, 2008), and Blue Laws (Finishing Line Press, 2007). Good Friday Kiss was chosen by Thomas Lux as the winner of the 2007 DeNovo Prize for 1st Book of Poetry.

A selection of publications that have printed her poetry and fiction include: American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, LA Weekly, Rattle, diode, and The Cortland Review.

In collaboration with her husband, the actor Phil Abrams, Bitting has adapted a number of her works for the visual medium known as "poem films". Some of these projects have been presented by Atticus Review, Cheek Teeth, and Moving Poems.

Bitting has collaborated with the non-profit California Dance Institute to implement a poetry component within their inner city middle school performing arts program for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She has taught poetry in the University of California, Los Angeles Writer’s Program, and is also a California Poet in the Schools, serving hundreds of students in Southern California. Her poetry outreach work also includes teaching the incarcerated at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, CA with grants from Poets and Writers Magazine.

Michelle Bitting currently lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, Phil Abrams, and their two children.

• 2011 - Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award
• 2011 - Beyond Baroque Foundation Poetry Award
• 2007 - DeNovo First Book Award, C & R Press, for "Good Friday Kiss"
• 2005 - Rock & Sling’s Virginia Brendemuehl Prize for "Good Friday Kiss"
• 2004 - Glimmer Train Poetry Contest for "Trees"

Collections

• 2012 - "Notes to the Beloved"
• 2008 - "Good Friday Kiss"
• 2007 - "Blue Laws"

Anthologies

• 2011 - Marin Center Poetry Anthology, Spring (Poems: "Faulkner Farms", "My Bukowski Life")
• 2005 - Traveling: An Anthology of Award-Winning Poetry, edited by John Reid (Poem: "Trees")
• 2002 - Emily Dickinson Awards Anthology, Vol. 7 (Poem: "At The Theme Park")

Selected Poems

• 2011 - "Black Guitar'""
• 2011 - "Epiphany"
• 2011 - "On Any Day Like Alice"
• 2011 - "After Four Days of Hammering Rain"
• 2011 - "Wheel of Fortune"
• 2010 - "Mammary"
• 2010 - "Open in Case of"
• 2009 - "Patti Smith"
• 2009 - "Meteor; Persimmon"
• 2009 - "Mother’s Day Omen"
• 2007 - "Little Gifts" (Micro fiction)
• 2006 - "Sacrament" (Finalist in 2005 poetry contest)

Poem Films

• "In Praise of My Brother, The Painter"
• "Boys Like You"
• "The Call"

"Notes to the Beloved" brims with the language of a fully lived life. A powerful female voice, body, spirit and sensibility inhabits this book and shakes it to the core. Bitting is at her best here: unbridled, open, aware. ~ Dorianne Laux, author of "The Book of Men" and "Facts About the MoonAnna"

Richly dense in both language and insight into the human heart, Michelle Bitting's "Notes to the Beloved" is a stunning collection of poems. As a fiction writer I am thrilled particularly by her voice, by the yearning of her poetic persona for a self, for a place in the universe, that yearning being the deeply beating heart of narrative as well. She is one of my favorite poets and this book will abide in me for a long, long time to come. ~ Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain"

This amazing book will get inside you. "Notes to the Beloved" pulses with immediacy. The sensory language, the resolute momentum, a large and courageous heart--here is a rare, seductive wholeness. Michelle Bitting's poetry is at once personal and transcendent. What could be better? ~ Marvin Bell, author of "Vertigo" and "Mars Being Red"

The poems of Michelle Bitting's gorgeous new collection, "Notes to the Beloved", feel like exquisite origami epistles that their recipients (and her readers) are asked to unfold the way the lovers of these poems have unfolded each other s bodies. These eloquent reflections on love both found and lost echo with desire, humor, and a fierce sense of continued hope, reminding us that torn valentines are sometimes the most beautiful. ~ David St. John, author of "The Auroras" and "The Face"

"...Bitting proves herself a sister poet to Anne Sexton, Sharon Olds and Sheryl St. Germain." ~ Kirkus Book Reviews, March 29th, 2012

"After reading this book not only did I understand the physical world in a more intimate and immediate way but I felt more a part of it." ~ Matthew Dickman, March 22nd, 2012: Free Verse: Notes To The Beloved, Tin House Blog