J. Michael Yates

J. Michael Yates (born April 10, 1938) is a U.S.-born Canadian poet and dramatist.

Life
J. Michael Yates was born in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and did graduate degrees at the Universities of Missouri and Michigan.

He has also been a logger, a powder monkey, a motorcycle racer, a broadcasting executive, a broadcaster, an advertising executive, a print salesman, a commercial photographer, a publisher. He retired after seventeen years as a Maximum Security Prison Guard and SWAT team member. Now, he and his wife teach languages, history of ideas, and science in their home in Vancouver, British Columbia.

He is a widely published author of poetry, fiction, drama, translations, and philosophical essays. He has edited several anthologies and founded and edited several literary magazines. His work has been translated into many languages, and his drama for radio, television, and stage have been produced both nationally and internationally. His last rank as a university professor was Distinguished Professor.

Recognition
Yates has won many literary prizes including the Major Hopwood Awards (both poetry and drama the same year); the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from University of Missouri; The Look of Books (for Volvox: Poetry from the Unofficial Languages of Canada in English Translation)and the Olympic Arts Award for Schedules of Silence. He received an honorary doctorate from Ohio University.

Awards

 * International Broadcasting Award, 1960 and 1961
 * Major Hopwood Award for Poetry and Drama from the University of Michigan, 1964
 * Look of Books Award, 1972
 * Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from the University of Missouri
 * The Writer's Choice Award, 1988
 * The Vancouver Award for Line Screw, 1994

Poetry

 * Spiral of Mirrors - 1967
 * Hunt in an Unmapped Interior - 1967
 * Cantacle for Electronic Music - 1967
 * Parallax - 1971
 * The Great Bear Lake Meditations - 1971 ISBN 0-88750-028-5
 * Nothing Speaks for the Blue Moraines - 1973
 * Breath of the Snow Leopard - 1974
 * The Qualicum Physics - 1975
 * Esox Nobilior Non Esox Lucius - 1978
 * Fugue Brancusi - 1983
 * Insel: The Queen Charlotte Islands Meditations - 1983
 * Various Northern Meditations - 1984
 * The Completely Collapsible Portable Man - 1984
 * Schedules of Silence - 1986 ISBN 0-88978-188-5
 * During - 1999
 * Hongyun: New and Collected Shorter Poems 1955-2005 - 2005 ISBN 1-4208-2771-5

Fiction

 * Man in the Glass Octopus - 1968
 * Fazes in Elsewhen - 1976
 * Torque - 1988 ISBN 0-88978-191-5
 * Torpor: Collected Fiction, 1960-1987 - 1989 ISBN 0-921870-00-0

Fiction and drama

 * The Abstract Beast - 1971

Drama

 * Night Freight - 1975

Non-fiction

 * Line Screw: Memoir of a Prison Guard - 1994

Anthologies

 * Light Like a Summons - 1990