In The Bones in the Garden (and other things found there), Elizabeth Michaud acts as our collective story keeper. She guides us through the scars left by American slavery, the caves and crevices of fantastical creatures, and the simple rooms where love can liberate us. This is a varied offering interweaving passion, pain, and folklore, like cream dissolving into coffee.

In this second collection of poetry, Michaud continues her narrative journey in verse. She grounds her work in truth and verve, drawing upon the hard facts of world history and the tender details of her own archive. When Michaud writes, “Tell no one of the bones / buried deep within the garden,” it is because she will be the one to tell. Watch her lay bare the horrific yet beautiful bones of her ancestors, of our world, of us all.

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