In All We Saw, Anne Michaels returns to poetry with strikingly original lyrics to explore one of her essential concerns: "what love makes us capable of, and incapable of." Here are the ways in which passion must accept, must insist, that “death . . . give / not only take from us.” This piercing collection treats desire in a style that is chaste, spare, figuratively modulated, almost classical. A sea in darkness, a woman’s hair shining in light, rain falling... how quiet must a voice be in order to be heard? In this way, desire is evoked with intensity and precision. We are left with a renewed awareness of the mystery at the core of existence; we enter a space that is ‘not inside, not outside: / dusk’s doorway,’ where love remains alive.

Praise for All We Saw:

“A testament to continuing friendship enlivened by memory . . . Michaels honors friendship with a deep attention. She allows us to relive the intensity of those fleeting experiences when we are wholly open to each other with generosity and love . . . The lines here [are] imbued with a torque of conviction . . . All We Saw marks the return of a poet to her initial calling—a return forged of immense love and suffering that insists on the necessity of poetry to revive what is lost. These poems reveal the uncanny and difficult truth that acknowledges how the dead guide us. It is a brave work that shows us there are no limits to love.” - Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Quill & Quire

"All We Saw does not romanticize death or grief . . . If there is courage, love and daring, it is in this book of poems." - Prism Magazine

“Deeply felt . . . Like assembled fragments from an ancient Greek lyricist, [Michaels’s] latest collection coheres to form a spare plaintive elegy for deceased friends and lovers.” - Fred Muratori, Library Journal

“Strikingly original lyrics . . . passionate, piercing . . . Calm and almost classical in its precision. By the book's end, we are left with a renewed awareness of the mystery at the core of our astonishing lives. With Michaels, we enter a space that is ‘not inside / nor outside: dusk's / doorway,’ where memory might be kept alive.” - CBC

“A rhythmic mediation on life and death . . . There is a constant tension between stillness and movement—the subjects are present across continents and ages, at once intimate and distant.” - Vanessa Karas, Pelican Magazine

“A beautifully spare and artful creation . . . Point of view can shift in fascinating and moving ways throughout a single poem in Michaels’ writing.” - Eric Karl Anderson, Lonesome Reader