The many moods of THE SLIP, from fabulous to funny to frenetic, announce the arrival of a promising new voice that can express, with consummate sensitivity and verve, the sorrows and celebrations of our complicated queerness. When Michael Montlack writes, he can make us sing or break our hearts. Each poem is a veritable ‘kiss of the artist’–passionate and memorable. –Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of OTHER FUGITIVES AND OTHER STRANGERS. With pitch-perfect pacing and an intimate colloquial voice, THE SLIP reads as engagingly novelistic even as these memoiristic vignettes are untamed by wit and scathing humor. Ouch. The poems are at once revealing yet winningly imaginative as they reignite myth–there’s even a bisexual Orpheus here who helps Montlack to rewrite the past while instructing, bruising, and exposing suburbia’s lingering melancholy. –Peter Covino, author of CUT OFF THE EARS OF WINTER, winner of PEN/America Osterweil Prize. Michael Montlack’s THE SLIP situates us in the middle of a life, threading together joys and sorrows. Some of the comic moments will truly make you laugh out loud. And at times, you’ll get horribly wistful. Such is the richness of this collection. –D. A. Powell, author of CHRONIC.