Michael Parker was born and raised in Utah. Most all his youth he spent in the heart of Castle Valley gaining an education and love of film while working at his parent’s movie theaters. He graduated with a degree in English from Brigham Young University, during which he also pursued courses in Greek civilization, myth & folklore and language which still come across in his writings to this day.

After university, he pursued a career in technical writing, with a diversified background in software, training, and marketing documentation. His work experience over seventeen years also included project manager, copywriter, editor, web designer and developer, graphic designer, and localization manager. He thrived in companies in downtown Salt Lake City and Draper, in which he would commute to do work in Syracuse, New York; Newport, California; Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; the greater Bay Area, California; and Freemont, California.

To understand Michael’s first full-length book of poetry, you must first understand the history of his suffering. Michael has always suffered from a bad back. In 1993, he had a back operation that fixed a herniated disc at L4-L5. He was diagnosed with disc degenerative disease also in 1993. In 2008, he had a back operation where they installed an artificial disc at L4-L5. In 2010, his surgeon fused discs L5-L6, just above the tailbone. Six months after this surgery, he was admitted into the hospital because he had an attack of pulmonary embolisms caused by a blood clot in his right calf. This nearly killed him. He was out of work for two months just recuperating from the weakness that encumbered him. It would take years, however, to fully recover from the pain caused by the attack. In 2013, he had a bad fall inside the house, which seemed to damage the artificial disc and fusion in his lower back, though no signs of damage would appear in MRIs. This has caused chronic lower back pain to this very day and partial nerve damage to his right leg. The core of his poetry collection Divining the Spirits in the House of the Hush and Hush deals with the suffering and depression caused by the pulmonary embolisms and the chronic lower back pain prevalent from that fall.

After the operation in 1993 and prior to the operations of 2008 and 2010, Michael enjoyed running marathons. He has completed 10 marathons, a slew of half-marathons and competed in two RAGNAR races. These marathons, races and training runs took him to Salt Lake City, Provo, Orem, Hurricane, St. George, Boise, Portland, Las Vegas, Ogden, and Orlando.

Though he dabbled in poetry in high school (taking home a second place at the Springville High School poetry contest his senior year), he never took it seriously until 2006. He had started a blog called Michael Parker’s Journal and was publishing poems and reviews of movies and poetry collections. A fellow blogger and poet, Pris Campbell, invited him to join an online poetry community consisting of poets from all over the United States and that was how his career in poetry began.

Michael’s poetry (and book reviews) have appeared in PoetsArtists, MiPOesias, Moss Trill, Blue Fifth Review, Miracle, Ygdrasil, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and New Letters Literary Magazine. He is the co-author of a poetry chapbook (with Pris Campbell) When the Wolves Come After You Hang On, published in 2017 by GOSS183.

Michael, his wife, and three kids live in Orem, Utah with their dog Maisie and two cats, Books and Needles. He enjoys listening to audible books (of books appearing on the long and shortlists of national and international awards such as the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and the Booker Prize for Fiction) and watching murder mystery thrillers with his wife, Jeanette.