The Size of the Horizon, or, I Explained Everything to the Trees

Parents can be expected to know all, but they don't have many answers in a world of constantly moving rights and wrongs. The poems in The Size of the Horizon, or, I Explained Everything to the Trees embrace the wandering uncertainty of the self in a life of so many unknowns and the frustrations of enduring the knowns. These poems address the natural world, gun violence, basketball, youth, mortality, climate crisis, and the parenting anxiety raised by tangling with all of that. Mitchell Nobis is a white adoptive dad to Black sons, and his work often looks at America's racism and various crises with both sorrow and fury. Yet, rhizomatic life maintains wonder amid chaos, and these poems bear witness to the joys alongside the worries.

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About the Poet: Mitchell Nobis is a writer and K-12 public school teacher in Metro Detroit where he lives with his family and dog. He facilitates the Teachers as Poets group for the National Writing Project, hosts the Wednesday Night Sessions reading series for KickstART Farmington, and co-founded the Not at AWP (NAWP) reading series. He is a past president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and former co-director of Red Cedar Writing Project, and he co-authored Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay, a pedagogical text for writing teachers. For more, see mitchnobis.com or find him falling apart on a basketball court.