Rung by Rung

Coming May 4th, 2027 - Books will ship the final week of April
Preorder now!

The poems in Rung by Rung delve into the labor and ecology of Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh, centering both built and wild environments. Whether toiling under a broken-down car or soaring into the imaginary, this collection is a rare blend of lyrical and conversational, formal and free, funny and serious, high and low, decay and growth. Rung by Rung takes its readers foraging and fishing into abandoned malls and run-down hockey rinks, and interrogates masculinity and family drama from a working-class perspective with delicacy and precision. This powerful debut announces Mike Good as a compelling new voice in American poetry.

Mike Good’s poetry has appeared in Bennington Review, Ploughshares, Radar, Sugar House Review, Waxwing, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. His writing has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Aspen Words, and The Sun. He has an MFA from Hollins University and previously served as managing editor at Autumn House Press. He now works in nonprofit development and freelances as a book reviewer. Mike lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. Rung by Rung is his debut poetry collection.

from Fishing All Afternoon at Canonsburg Lake, and It Is Hot

They can call anything a lake I suppose,
never mind the patio music coming across the water
from that restaurant along with the insect din
of human conversation, incomprehensible
garbage spilling from cars crossing the bridge, and that row
of car dealerships that say, C’mon in.

Eight Morels Growing from a Heap of Gravel

Watch them grow there, beside the sewer line
where the river water grays and flows,
where pastel houses wind and climb.
Watch them grow there. Beside the sewer line,
a sliver of liver will make silver carp shine
into the river, the rind, the brine of time.
Watch them grow there, beside the sewer line
where river water grays and flows.

In poem after poem, Mike Good integrates a wide range of skills and approaches to achieve revelation, creating a profoundly rewarding and moving reading experience. These poems should be closely read and cherished. Their music is brokenhearted, their depth is rooted in empathy with the world, their vision is informed by love, and their beauty is the outcome of language that is inventive and probing. These poems operate at the limits of rational thought, in the realms of ecstasy, and unearth some of the most ancient human feelings and insights.

—Li-Young Lee, author of The Invention of the Darling

Rung by Rung is a collection that asks what we owe the people and places that made us. It opens with “Oil Change,” an intimate poem, in which the act of maintaining a car oscillates between inheritance and meditation. The poetic excavations that follow are profound, vulnerably rich, and morally charged examinations of class betrayal, as well as what fathers teach sons and what sons refuse to learn until it’s almost too late. Using the natural world to orient the reader, Mike Good relies on the wingspan of fish, the bated breath of squirrels, the patience of creek water, and the beauty of autumn light to counter the machinery of labor and capitalism. Ultimately, these poems ponder the question: “What do we owe the land and people of our making and does climbing higher mean leaving them behind?”

—Mahogany L. Browne, poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and author of Chrome Valley

Gratitude and reverence are deftly braided in Mike Good’s magnificent debut. A father’s gasoline-slick hands, a grandma’s inimitable recipe are not just memories, but deeply felt language that radiates with more than one emotion. Emotion, here, is prismatic. Life, here, is always in motion. Moving from one small town to another, fishing in another lake, walking down the aisle, welcoming a niece. Good makes visible the natural world and the inner world. Morels abound. As does lyrical thinking. I look forward to sharing these poems, which are earth-rich and heartfelt and beautifully crafted.

—Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine

May 2027
100 pp
Trade paper – 6x9"
$20
ISBN 978-1-960327-29-1
Emerging Voices in Poetry