I wouldn't be surprised if I found that "Michael Darcher" is the pen name of one of my favorite comics. Through leaps and sidesteps and sidelong glances, these deeply funny and moving poems make me laugh and then wince and often leave me in an epiphanic moment as if I were lying in a hammock at someone's farm in Minnesota. If you love Lucia Perillo, Ron Koertge, and Billy Collins, you'll love this Michael Darcher fellow.

-DEREK SHEFFIELD, poetry editor of Terrain.org and author of

Not for Luck

Michael Darcher's collection, Odd Comfort, is a book of mature poems about a life lived fully. Darcher illustrates for us how the love we carry for our family holds us steady and can also traumatize us. There is a deft touch in the imagery and music in these poems. And after reading them, we remember even those we have forgotten and are thankful for the odd comfort that they have been in our lives.

-JEFF KNORR, author of Color of a New Country