Drawing on nearly seven decades of observing a changing nation, Michael Comiskey turns a keen—and sometimes wry—eye toward contemporary American life in Fight or Flight: Poems from a Turbulent Time.

Through humor, irony, lament, and occasional celebration, Comiskey explores the American experience of the mid- to late-2020s, reflecting on politics, technology, environmental change, patriotism, poetry, and the complications of living through an unsettled era. Employing both traditional and nontraditional poetic forms, he considers the absurdities, anxieties, losses, contradictions, and unexpected joys of the current moment.

Wide-ranging in subject and style, Fight or Flight is the work of a longtime observer of American institutions and American life—an invitation to consider where we are, how we arrived here, and how we respond when the world around us seems to demand a choice between fight and flight.

Praise for Fight or Flight...

Michael Comiskey’s Fight or Flight is engaging in two senses: delighting and engaging with the serious problems of the world. You may laugh out loud when he writes about mundane frustrations (“People Who Don’t Call You Back” and “Handy Health Tips”). You may nod in sad agreement or even learn when he writes about injustices and ecological crimes, like mountain-top removal. Comiskey’s skill with traditional verse is evident but never forced. It’s often playful, playing off poets like Elizabeth Bishop and Wallace Stevens and recognizing himself as a “poaholic.” You don’t need to be a poaholic to enjoy this book.

• Arlene Weiner, playwright and poet, author of More, City Bird, and Escape Velocity

In Fight or Flight, Michael Comiskey stares down the world and tells it like it is. For him, nature is no sylvan glade, nationalism is not patriotism, and an economic system that exploits people and the environment is not worth buying into. His musings—whether caustic, witty, wry, or celebratory—show a poet so well versed in the world of poets and poetic forms that he can write such things as a villanelle on capitalism and a haiku on procrastination. Despite what he writes in one of his poems, this collection demonstrates that the art of poetry is not lost.

• Beverly Peterson, Ph.D., Associate Professor Emerita of English and American Studies, Penn State University