Isaac Pickell is a biracial poet & PhD candidate in Detroit, where he teaches the writing of poetry and the reading of literature. He received his MFA from Miami University and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Woodward Review. He is the author of the chapbookeverything saved will be last and his work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Passages Northamong other journals.
"""Isaac Pickell is a poet of jaw-dropping turns of thought—lines looping around their ends with all the torque of a serpentine belt, exploding their premises, rattling expectation. In this rare precision of poetic thought is also care, a care which reminds us that behind each poem is a feeling there’s somebody the poems defend against the brutal foreclosures of this historical moment and the inscriptions this blurb might bring. What’s that? “It’s not over once you figure it out.” I mean, as soon as I read this, I read it again. What are you waiting for?""—Joe Hall, author of Fugue and Strike ""Isaac Pickell’s It's Not Over Once You Figure It Out is a book of repetitions, of history repeating itself so predictably that the future is burned down by its everlasting flame. Pickell’s speaker collapses time as we know it, and in this timelessness, our fiery and grief-filled present threatens to unravel into the infinite distance. Knowing the history is only half the battle, especially when the present is a 'naïve critic of the future, written futures, within the already has been.' In the discomfort of the past, present, and future becoming one frightening drone, Pickell forces us towards the anxious action of rerouting and rewriting our future.""—Dr. Taylor Byas, author of I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times"