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Born in Baton Rouge, Micah Ballard attended the Poetics program at New College of California, where he studied with David Meltzer, Joanne Kyger and Tom Clark. From 2000-07, he directed the Humanities program there and currently co-directs the MFA in Writing program at University of San Francisco. He co-edits Auguste Press and serves on the editorial board for New Orleans University Press.
Though raised in Baton Rouge, La., Ballard now seems energetically tied to San Francisco, since his offhand intensities, fiercely casual stance, quick free verse, and colloquial mysticism draw so frequently on two great sources of Bay Area poetics, the prophetic concentration of Robert Duncan and the extroversion of the beats. Often he builds bridges from a bohemian life in this world to greatness in the next. 'Pools of Olympia' (which may refer to Greek gods or to hard liquor, or to both) imagines 'smashed glass gutter core/ exact proportions darkly mingled... the highest farewell between heaven and earth.' Ballard explains in a longer poem how 'Alive/ in being gone/ I seek what you have not/ & dilate my margins/ to form a heaven/ underground.' Ballard updates his sources with hip-hop and indie-rock references (Guided by Voices, Morrissey), presenting his own inner quests as ambivalent models: 'what some find as flaws/ I claim as divine rites/ do not try to follow me/ it's up to you
