Name: Michael Dylan Welch
Location: Born in Watford, England, and grew up in England, Ghana, Australia, and then Canada. Now living in Sammamish, Washington.
Blogs: www.graceguts.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/MichaelDylanWelch
https://sites.google.com/site/nahaiwrimo/home
http://sites.google.com/site/soulfoodpoetrynight/
(among others)
How do you know Cara? NaHaiWriMo, Seabeck, HSA, etc.
How long have you been writing poetry? Since I was a child. I’ve also been writing haiku since I was a teenager, starting in 1976.
What kind of poetry do you write? Haiku, senryu, tanka, and longer poetry (mostly free-form), plus American Sentences and my neon buddha poems (which are short like haiku, but I don’t consider most of them to be haiku).
Please share a poem:
The Clarinet
First published in Mosaic #28, 1988, page 82 (University of California, Riverside). Also published in Sand Hill Review #4, Spring 2003, page 39.
A Londoner with
hatovercoatclarinet
plays amiable
songstunesmelodies
outside
the Royal Festival,
command performance
inside.
His hatovercoatclarinet
case
are worn,
and the tired case lies
open
where naked
reedspenniespounds
rest.
The music
floats
sweetly
across the Thames
played
through thin
woolgloveswithoutfingers
and when the concert
ends
bowlersgownsducktails
waltz like the river by
to the sound
of a dreamy
clarinet.
Prose Posies 
Enjoyed reading this free-form poem from Michael!
Thanks for showcasing Michael’s poetry, Cara. So much to admire from his overwhelming body of works! Really enjoying this project of yours. Thanks again!
It’s always fun when someone crosses genres in poetry. This was the first non-Japanese form poem I’ve read of Michael’s, and I must say, I’m enjoying glimpsing another side of poets I only know from the haiku world.
Thanks, Cara. If you’d like to see more of my poems that aren’t in Japanese forms, feel free to take a look at https://sites.google.com/site/graceguts/poems. Perhaps start with “The Clarinet” or “Flowers on the Roof of Hell.” Or “Shake the Shaker”? So many hundreds more I could post to the site!
Wow, Michael! I just read some of your longer poems, and they’re wonderful! I don’t know how I managed to miss that part of your blog before. I will be back to read more of them!
Wow! So cool to see this poem by Michael. I like it a lot. Thanks, Cara! 🙂
Great topic, creatively painted on the page. Nice!
Cara, I am so enjoying these little snipets of introduction to the poets in your life! Thank you for taking on a very different (at least to me) approach to the celebration of National Poetry Month.
Marie Elena
I have to give credit where credit is due, Marie Elena. I got the idea for this project from poet friend, Angie Werren, who is participating in a project called Couplets: a multi author poetry blog tour. Although I’m not officially taking part in Couplets, I did like the idea of offering up my blog for guest posts. The idea has been enthusiastically received, and it has been so rewarding for me to learn more about poets I know, and to read such stellar poetry. What a wealth of talent out there!