The Breaking of the Day is a book built around a 3-piece title sequence as Michael Heffernan, now in his seventies, reflects on life from his own backyard. The poems venture outwards to take in the whole of Ireland, northern Michigan and the shores of the Great Lakes, even a tumbledown Parisian backstreet. Together they convey an increasing uncertainty in the power of human testimony, seeking solace in the control of the classical metre and vision of the master poets who preceded him.
“Like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Badlands of South Dakota, Michael Heffernan is a national treasure. By turns haunting, ethereal, quirky, and humorous, his poems never fail to delight.”
Martha Silano
“Disarming poetry.”
Ron Slate
Michael Heffernan was born and brought up in Detroit, Michigan. He has received several National Endowment for the Arts awards for his work, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the Porter Prize for Literary Excellence. He regularly features on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac radio show in the US. His most recent collections are The Odor of Sanctity (Salmon, 2008) and At the Bureau of Divine Music (2011). Since 1986 he has lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas.