Rung by Rung is a collection that asks what we owe the people and places that made us. It begins by opening with “Oil Change,” an intimate poem, in which the act of maintaining a car oscillates between inheritance and meditation. The poetic excavations that follow are profound, vulnerably rich, and morally charged examinations of class betrayal, what fathers teach sons, and what sons refuse to learn until it’s almost too late. Using the natural world to orient the reader, Mike Good relies on the wingspan of fish, the bated breath of squirrels, the patience of creek water, and the beauty of autumn light to counter the machinery of labor and capitalism. Ultimately, these poems ponder the question “what do we owe the land and people of our making and does climbing higher mean leaving them behind?”
 

Mahogany L. Browne, poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center, author of Chrome Valley and A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe

Gratitude and reverence are deftly braided in Mike Good’s magnificent debut. A father’s gasoline-slick hands, a grandma’s inimitable recipe are not just memories, but deeply felt language that radiates with more than one emotion. Emotion, here, is prismatic. Life, here, is always in motion. Moving from one small town to another, fishing in another lake, walking down the aisle, welcoming a niece. Good makes visible the natural world and the inner world. Morels abound. As does lyrical thinking. I look forward to sharing these poems, which are earth-rich and heartfelt and beautifully crafted.
 

Eduardo C. Corral, author of Guillotine

In poem after poem, Mike Good integrates a wide range of skills and approaches to achieve revelation, creating a profoundly rewarding and moving reading experience. These poems should be closely read and cherished. Their music is brokenhearted, their depth is rooted in empathy with the world, their vision is informed by love, and their beauty is the outcome of language that is inventive and probing. These poems operate at the limits of rational thought, in the realms of ecstasy, and unearth some of the most ancient human of feelings and insights.
 

Li-Young Lee, author of The Invention of the Darling