Michael Paul Ladanyi

Poet, editor, reviewer ~

Michael Paul Ladanyi, originally from Detroit, MI, resides in the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains with his wife and two daughters. Ladanyi has worked as a poetry editor and reviewer with several online magazines, and currently is the founder and editor of Adagio Verse Quarterly.

Ladanyi is the author of several poetry chapbooks: Palm Shadows, Spelling Crows of Winter, Chicken Bones, and All Your Picasso Dreams. Additionally, his 72 poem collection titled Humming Riddles in Naked Seasons, (by The Sun Rising Poetry Press) will be released in June of 2004. His poetry, interviews and reviews written of his work, have appeared over 200 times in print and online magazines, journals, books and anthologies, in the US and abroad, during the last three years.

For details on his books and reviews — click on the following links: http://www.geocities.com/michael_paul_ladanyi/index.html
Canadian freelance writer and poet, Aurora Antonovic offers a review of his work as well ~

His writing and influences~

Michael has always written, though it was not until losing his youngest brother suddenly in 1997, at age 26, that he began to take his poetry seriously. Then later, in 2002, after the passing of his father after a year and a half battle with cancer, his work became foremost in his mind. He now writes full-time. 'Ladanyi views his writing as densely layered possibilities of straining image contained in sound and color, not mere words; as the humanity contained in nature, and the nature contained in humanity, being one in the same, an inseparable and constant entity that demands attention.' Michael's favorite poets are Dylan Thomas, Virgil Suarez, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Frost, Duane Locke, Sylvia Plath, and more recently, the minimalist/post modern poet, Donna Kuhn, among others.

It has been said about his poems, that, "their wisdom is not the easy, soul's-ease message of so much of contemporary poetry. Rather, Ladanyi's work is hard-edged, the tone hard as the bones that are a constant motif in the poetry, the poet's empathy for the world he describes so well..." (Donald Levin, poet, author, editor and Associate Professor of English, Marygrove College, MI, in a recent May 2004 review of Michael's All Your Picasso Trees.)

Unlike most modernist poets, his post-modern style opens a door into another dimension, that is, Ladanyi engages the reader within rows of metaphoric hooks which transcends the very essence of his signature: "hard-edged" — one is captured by the unique way he masters his delivery with imagery and purpose.

“I see my poetry as a thing that must be. I am grateful for it, and share it openly.”
- Michael P. Ladanyi

All ©material was contributed for this web site by author, Michael P. Ladanyi, May, 2004.

Do not copy any poems without the author's permission.

Selected Work ~