Michael Cantor’s work has appeared in Measure, The Dark Horse, The Raintown Review, Umbrella, SCR, Margie, Chimaera and numerous other journals, e-zines and anthologies. His honors include the New England Poetry Club Erika Mumford (2006) and Gretchen Warren (2008) Prizes. He has been a finalist or semifinalist in the Howard Nemerov, Donald Justice, Richard Wilbur and Morton Marr Award competitions. A chapbook, The Performer, was published by Pudding House Press in 2007. A native New Yorker, he has lived and worked in Japan, Europe and Latin America, and now lives on Plum Island, MA.

Books by Michael Cantor:

Other poems on the web by Michael Cantor:
"Where Are the Negligees of Anthony?"
"A Righteous Man"
"An Octina for Wally Pip"
"Do Not Go Gentle into that Quenelle"
"Two Love Stories"

Michael Cantor's Website.

About Life in the Second Circle :

"Dante’s second circle of hell was reserved for sins of lust, but Cantor’s narrator does not judge his infernal cast of characters; rather, he causes us to identify with their essential human neediness. What’s more, he does so through a cinematic gift for storytelling and a mastery of poetic form."
—Julie Kane

"Michael Cantor uses words to paint and sculpt the world. He writes the world too—which I don’t say as an afterthought, since verbal wit is Cantor’s forte. Life in the Second Circle is a sensory kaleidoscope where the poems are more like movies."
—Deborah Warren

"To be called “a poet’s poet” passes for a compliment among poets. Michael Cantor is another, rarer kind of poet—let’s say “a novelist’s poet.” This poet knows things that writers of fiction know about writing, and that other poets ignore at their peril. This extraordinary collection is testament to his unaffected generosity and genuine interest in other people, qualities that make him good company in person and in print."
—Alfred Nicol

"This is not your mother’s book of poems."
—Wendy Videlock

"Like Muhammad Ali, one of the “Box Men” he celebrates in a virtuosic crown of sonnets, Cantor is a master of floating like a butterfly in a small, roped-off space. In his hands the most formidably difficult forms—villanelles, triolets, Petrarchan sonnets, sestinas, ballades, and equally rigorous stanzas of his own invention—become spurs to imaginative freedom. Like the vividly drawn characters who populate Life in the Second Circle, we are constantly reminded that one never knows where life will go, or how or when or where. But it’s a pleasure to be along for the ride."
—Catherine Tufariello