Michael Thomas

The poems in Atheists and Empty Spaces explore the quintessential aspect of humanity - the need of having something in which to believe. Modern humanity attempts to fill the empty spaces in the psyche with emotional and psychological sustenance that was once provided by communal connections, religion, and the worship of deities or even nature.These poems explore how, in many ways, people have all become atheists because they no longer know how to connect to natural and supernatural forces, and they simply no longer believe in them. Humanity is now lacking a connection to the impulses that once nurtured human desires. However, the poems also suggest that art can provide a path back to those vital connections. Some poems are simple explorations of personal pain that cannot be soothed. Others are thorough considerations of how warped or misguided humanity's attempts really are at solving an elusive and unidentified misery. Most of these poems take traditional forms of verse and song, but some find their unique rhythms in contemporary free verse. Others use examples from ancient cultures to comment on contemporary culture while some ideas spring from news headlines of today. Each poem in this collection reflects on the ways that modern humans seek to fill their empty spaces, whether atheist or not.

What may look to the untrained eye like a barren landscape, looks to the trained eye like an illustration of wondrous beauty. What we see is less important than the perspective from which we see it. Michael Thomas sees things from way outside the box, and so has a fresh perspective we all can benefit from. It is difficult for an academic to see the ways of the world and it is uncommon for a worldly man to appreciate the realm of academia. It is a singular gift when one man can walk in both worlds, as a practicing normal human being as well as a student of mankind. Read this book and see for yourself.

As an accountant, Michael Thomas has had difficulty applying his great knowledge of history, literature and art. But in his poetry, he is free to express his understandings in unbridled creative and playful ways. This, his most recent book of poetry is likely his most creative and playful, as he becomes more versed and practiced every day. Michael is blessed with an extensive vocabulary and the understanding of how to blend words to create effects which are more than the sum of the phrases, like a jazz master plays a saxophone solo. You cannot put what you heard into words, you only know that it left you awed and satisfied when it was over. Such is the sublime nature of high art in all of its varied forms. In Michael Thomas Poetry 6, we have a collection that in totality reaches that sublimity a multitude of times, leaving the reader many memorable experiences

‘There’s a bridge of beautiful American prose—lyrical, powerful, fearlessly candid—running straight from James Baldwin to Thomas, who is obviously Baldwin’s worthy heir . . . An utterly immersive book’ Francisco Goldman, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Monkey Boy From the author of Man Gone Down—a New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and winner of the Dublin Literary Award—comes a deeply personal memoir of race, trauma, alcoholism, parenting, mental illness and ultimately hope in a portrait of three generations of Black American men In 2007, Michael Thomas launched into the literary world with his award-winning first novel Man Gone Down, a beautiful and devastating story of a Black father trying to claim a piece of the American Dream. Called “powerful and moving . . . an impressive success,” by Kaiama L. Glover on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, Thomas’ debut introduced a writer of prodigious and rare talent. In his long-awaited encore and first work of nonfiction, The Broken King, Thomas explores fathers and sons, lovers and the beloved, trauma and recovery, success and failure in a unique, urgent, and timeless memoir. The title is borrowed from T.S. Eliot’s line in “Little Gidding”: “If you came at night like a broken king,” and the work ponders the process of being broken. Akin to Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time or Nabokov’s Speak, Memory, Thomas’ memoir unfolds through six powerful, interlocking and overlaying parts focusing on the lives of five men: his father—a philosopher, Boston Red Sox fan, and absent parent; his estranged older brother; his two sons growing up in Brooklyn; and always, heartbreakingly himself. At the center of The Broken King is the story of Thomas’ own breakdown, a result of inherited family history and his own experiences, from growing up Black in the Boston suburbs to publishing a prize-winning novel with “the house of Beckett.” Every page of The Broken King rings with the impact of America’s sweeping struggle with race and class, education and family, and builds to a brave, meticulous articulation of a creative mind’s journey into and out of madness.

Michael Thomas's extraordinary new book, The Broken King, traces the lives of the men in his family against the backdrop of the last century-and-a-half in American history. From Reconstruction to the Jim Crow South and Civil Rights movement, Thomas explores fathers and sons, lovers and beloved, trauma and recovery, race and deracination, success and failure, soccer and the Red Sox in a beautifully unique memoir. The title is borrowed from T.S. Eliot's line in "Little Gidding" "If you came at night like a broken king," and the work ponders the process of being broken. Reminiscent of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, Thomas delivers a series of powerful vignettes reaching back to his grandfather who, though trained as a pharmacist, never found work as one; his father, the president of his class at Boston University, an artist and philosopher who was an unsuccessful businessman and a failed parent; to his brother's lawlessness; and his own sons' relatively privileged, safe lives in Brooklyn today. Every page rings with the effects of America's struggle with race, class, wealth, education, land, and tradition, while offering an intimate look at the creative mind under stress--a brave, meticulous articulation of madness in its guises through generations.

Dewey Lynn and his anonymous co-author are back again with an amazing story that practically no one requested to read. Find out how the well-meaning young man from Uncle Boog and the Dogfight and Aunt Charlottes' Crib wound up in the back of a police car and relive the terrible moments leading up to his arrest along with him. You won't be sorry. Also, Dewey Lynn relays the latest news about his beloved Aunt Charlotte. Prepare to have your heart broken all over again.

This book will explain how to produce durable concrete, prevent premature concrete deterioration, and assess why concrete may suffer from degradation. It will examine the main forms of deterioration, including reinforcing steel corrosion, carbonation of concrete, freeze-thaw attack, sulfate attack, and alkali-aggregate reaction. It will also cover weathering, biogenic corrosion, abrasion, fire, acid attack, and scour. Several case studies will be presented to provide real-world examples of deterioration. The book will focus on the material science aspects of the deterioration mechanisms so that a strong fundamental understanding will be realized by professionals and graduate students alike.

This book explores the implications of technology-mediated project-based language learning for CALL teacher development, focusing on the role of video-based instruction in elucidating challenges and opportunities to promote learner creativity in the language classroom. The volume builds on existing literature on project-based language learning by extending the focus on the affordances of machinima, digital video created by teachers and learners to capture experience in 3D immersive games or virtual worlds. Drawing on data from a large-scale research project featuring case studies that examine different facets of CALL teacher education, the book calls attention to language learning and teaching strategies that encourage both learners and teachers to develop innovative approaches in the language classroom and how such approaches promote the integration of lifelong learning skills alongside traditional linguistic competencies. Offering a dynamic contribution to the growing literature on the interface of language learning and teaching and technology, this book will appeal to students and researchers in applied linguistics and language and education, as well as those interested in the latest developments in CALL.