Over a two decade period Michael recorded his thoughts and experiences in almost 600 poems. With a start in life that was excessively long, and marked with vulnerabilities, exploitations lasted till in his mid forties, when Michael found confidence, himself, and love. This large volume: a very beautiful hardback, is complete in itself, with all of Michael's poems from 2000 to 2020, with each dated and in chronological order. Styles change; there are many poetic forms; like acrostics, free-verse, syllabic, simple rhymers, sonnets, calligrams, hybrids and much more. Of course twenty years led to an improvement in Michael's craft, which is interesting in itself, and around fifty of these poems were published by the editors of many poetry markets. These ranged from simple websites to much more difficult markets like English language departments of Universities, for example, "Kestrel" the journal of Fairmont State University. Considering O' level English language required three attempts by the teenaged Michael, and he went on to gain degrees in both chemistry and computing, not arts subjects, his "rubbing shoulders" with professors and PhDs in English, and its lecturers and fellows of the subject, in Issue 31, Fall 2013, of this journal, was a gigantic achievement, and shows where dedication and determination can get us, not just as a writer; yes? The successful poem in that case was called "Life in a back pocket". He wrote it a while after his first wife died. Despite Michael's move to only nonfiction, in 2020, his verse and prose absolutely are a complement to one another. Together, they are greater than the sum of their isolated parts.