Written and published over a period of forty years, the essays in Phillip Sterling’s Lessons in Geography chronicle how his formative years in Northwest Lower Michigan not only inspired him to be a writer but also profoundly influenced his creative and critical perspectives. Diverse in form, the essays are nonetheless unified in theme: how the geography of a place—the forests, shores, and lakes of Michigan—plays a role in one’s education, imparting knowledge of the wider, human world.
Phillip Sterling is a poet and fiction writer. His books include Mutual Shores (2000), In Which Brief Stories Are Told (2011), Amateur Husbandry (2019), and Local Congregation (2023). He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, two Senior Fulbright Lectureships (Belgium and Poland), a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and artist residencies at Isle Royale National Park and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He lives in Lowell, Michigan.
Phillip Sterling was born in the metro Detroit area and raised largely in rural West Michigan. Like earlier Michigan poets/essayists such as Theodore Roethke and Jim Harrison, Sterling, in these lovely essays, explores both the external and interior dichotomies of settled/unsettled and domestic/wild. And like his predecessors, Sterling manages to convey genuine, moving sentiment without becoming sentimental. This is a book about a poet’s sometimes perilous coming of age, and of aging with grace and acceptance. —Sue William Silverman, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul
Whether writing of his northern Michigan boyhood, ancient trees, Mom’s custard pie, dog bites, Belgian frites (French fries), or the abandoned death camps of Poland, Sterling brings wide-ranging insight, an in-depth sense of history, self-effacing wisdom, and the marvelous double vision of the true memoirist to these essays. His “lessons” build chronologically to depict the development of a writer’s imagination with the deftness that marks his signature poetry, both complex and captivating. This fine work is a significant contribution to the Great Lakes “Voice.” —Anne-Marie Oomen, author of The Long Fields and recipient of the 2023-24 Michigan Author Award
In Lessons in Geography: The Education of a Poet, Phillip Sterling distills a lifetime of lessons learned in places as varied as an “Up North” Michigan lakeside cottage, a Kentucky college mailroom (where a mysterious sketch and message on a paper bag affirm his identity as a poet), and Liege, Belgium, where he explores the nuances of “mutual understanding” in light of Belgian kissing customs. Whether describing the “roguish” appeal of black licorice or dissecting a recipe for stollen, ingredient by memory-laden ingredient, Sterling mixes keenly observed experiences with fresh perspectives, all rendered with a poet’s sensitive precision. The result is a memoir that transcends mere recollection. —Nan Sanders Pokerwinski, author of Mango Rash: Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta
Phillip Sterling is one of Michigan’s finest and best known poets and fiction writers. In this new collection, he raises the non-fiction bar to a new level. These wonderfully crafted essays are rich with language, alive with memory, and moving with the experiences of a rural everyday Michigan life. I highly recommend this book. Lessons in Geography is one of the most engaging and accessible memoirs I’ve read in recent years, a beautifully written narrative about place and the poetry it inspires. —M. L. Liebler, Detroit poet, editor, and author of Hound Dog: A Poet’s Memoir of Rock, Revolution and Redemption
Third Wednesday Magazine 