WINNER OF THE 2024 NEW OHIO REVIEW PRIZE
INAUGURAL POET LAUREATE OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA
FOUNDER OF FISHPLATE POETRY
Michele’s decades of clinical work are reflected in her writing: themes in her poems often center on resiliency, connection, empathy, and awareness.
Michele’s inaugural collection What We Do was a finalist for the Washington Book Award. Her poetry and reviews can be found in over a hundred literary journals such as JAMA, Alaska Quarterly Review, Atlanta Review, Parabola, Bellevue Literary Review, and many others. She holds an MFA in poetry from Pacific University and has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Mineral School, and The Tyrone Guthrie Centre and a grant from Humanities Washington. Michele is the founder of Fishplate Poetry, offering workshops, editing and retreats while raising funds for humanitarian relief.
Michele is available for book groups, readings and presentations.
“Loss, connection, spiritual struggle, and resiliency: these are the themes of my working life and my art. It matters because these are essential human experiences.”
— Michele Bombardier
Publications, partial list:
Book, full collection: What We Do, (Kelsay Books, 2018)
Literary Journals/Anthologies:
“The Horse It Runs Wild”, Crab Creek Review, 2022
“Visiting Grandchildren”, Waxing and Waning, 2022
“Hereafter”, Waxing and Waning, 2022
“The Tattoos of my Youth Were Numbers on Forearms”, Waxing and Waning, 2022
“Essential Workers Are to Report to Duty”, Essential Anthology, 2022
“A Short Flight in a Small Room”, JAMA, 2021
“The Visitor”, Bracken, 2021
“Another Tree Dream”, Bracken, 2021
“Sequoiadendroh Giganteum”, Parabola, 2020, finalist, Thomas Merton Award
“Preparing the Ground”, San Pedro Review, 2020
“On The Ten-Year Anniversary of a Friend’ Death”, The Inspired Poet, Two Sylvia Press, 2019
“I Dream I Understand My Great-Grandmother’s Yiddish”, Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium, Anthology, 2019
“A Taste of Sweetness”, Alaska Quarterly Review, 2018
“What We Do”, Atlanta Review, 2018
“Rise Like a River”, Artemis Journal, 2018
“White Privilege”, Cotton Xenomorph, 2018
“My White Self Tries to Imagine”, Cotton Xenomorph, 2018
“What Will We Tell the Children After Las Vegas?”, Poems For Las Vegas, Sound Publishing, 2017
“Aphasia Testing”, Bellevue Literary Review, 2017
“Western Red Cedar”, Raven Chronicles, 2017
“Baptism”, Bellevue Literary Review, 2016
“What the Arborist Hears”, Fourth River, Fall 2016
“Self-Portrait”, Artemis Journal, 2016
“The Skirt of God”, Quarterday Review, 2016
“House Guests”, The Quietry, 2015
“Creation Story”, Museum of Northwest Art, 2015
“Boy and Box”, Freshwater Review, 2015
“My Son the Humanitarian Worker Bop”, East Coast Literary Review, 2014
“Plum Jam with Wine”, East Coast Literary Review, 2014
“To the Father in My Clinic Who Said No Child of His Could Have Autism and Never Returned”, East Coast Literary Review, 2014
“Holding Still”, The Examined Life Journal, 2014
“Our Cleaning Lady Came Today”, Floating Bridge Press, 2014
“Waiting for The Explosion on The Corner of Fear and Panic”, Silver Birch Press
I AM WAITING Series, 2014
“White Christmas”, Sukoon, 2014
“Leaving Damascus in The Arab Spring”, Sukoon, 2014
“Talking to My Dead”, here/there poetry, 2014
“She Moved Closer”, The Lost River Review, 2014
“The River Jordan”, The Lost River Review, 2014
“Bag of Hope”, The Coe Review, 2013
“Maiden Voyage”, The Moon Magazine, 2013
Book Reviews:
“Blood of the Air” by Ama Codjoe, Whale Road Review, 2022
“Thrust” by Heather Derr-Smith, Whale Road Review, 2019.
“Self-Portrait with Housewife” by Jennifer Saunders, Glass Poetry, 2019.
“Mars Poetica” by Wyn Cooper, Whale Road Review, 2019.
“Kingdom” by Joseph Millar, Whale Road Review, 2018.
“Immigrant Model” by Mihaela Moscaliuc, Poetry International, May 2017
“Everything Broken Up Dances” by James Byrne, Poetry International, May 2017
Honors:
New Ohio Review Poetry Prize, 2024
Tryone Guthrie Centre fellow, 2024
Inaugural Poet Laureate, Bainbridge Island, WA 2022-2024
Pushcart nomination, SWWIM, 2023
Pushcart nomination, Crab Creek Review, 2022
Thomas Merton Award finalist, 2020
Hedgebrook fellow, 2019
Guest Lecture, Dietrick V. Asten Lecture Series, College of Humanities and Science, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, 2019
Guest Lecture, Dept of Rehabilitation Medicine, Humanities and Medicine, Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia, 2019
Pushcart Prize nomination, Kelsay Press 2019
Finalist, Write Bloody Press, 2017
Mineral School fellow, 2017
Writers Resist, 2017
Centrum Residency fellow, 2012, 2014, 2016