"When Yates and I first met and had dinner at the University of Missouri, he was an undergraduate. His work was brilliant then. This I told him and his department head. This Canticle for Electronic Music underscores the acuity of my forecasting."-W.H. Auden, The Quest "With great admiration for your work."--Joyce Carol Oates "I appreciate this poet's concentration, swiftness, density: his choice for the deeply personal utterance and that only. He wastes no time with exercises, set themes, and other conventional maneuvers."-Henry Rago, editor, Poetry. "He is violent and unpredictable.has a wild, unconventional imagination."-James Dickey "Dangerous minds investigate dangerous places in the mind. Most of your work lives in these places."-Yehuda Amichai. "J. Michael Yates is the most lively and original writer of his generation."-Robin Skelton "I appreciate your keeping me out of trouble almost as much as I appreciate your poetry." -Czeslaw Milosz. "This young writer, unlike most, is fearless in matters of dangerous themes and dialogue which will clearly come over the lights."-Arthur Miller (as judge of Yates'Major Hopwood Award winning manuscript, Subjunction.) "Michael Yates is a great poet who has given us such a universe. I consider his The Great Bear Lake Meditations to be by far the most ambitious and successful meditative poem ever written in Canada."-Fred Cogswell

"When Yates and I first met and had dinner at the University of Missouri, he was an undergraduate. His work was brilliant then. This I told him and his department head. This Canticle for Electronic Music underscores the acuity of my forecasting."-W.H. Auden, The Quest "With great admiration for your work."--Joyce Carol Oates "I appreciate this poet's concentration, swiftness, density: his choice for the deeply personal utterance and that only. He wastes no time with exercises, set themes, and other conventional maneuvers."-Henry Rago, editor, Poetry. "He is violent and unpredictable.has a wild, unconventional imagination."-James Dickey "Dangerous minds investigate dangerous places in the mind. Most of your work lives in these places."-Yehuda Amichai. "J. Michael Yates is the most lively and original writer of his generation."-Robin Skelton "I appreciate your keeping me out of trouble almost as much as I appreciate your poetry." -Czeslaw Milosz. "This young writer, unlike most, is fearless in matters of dangerous themes and dialogue which will clearly come over the lights."-Arthur Miller (as judge of Yates'Major Hopwood Award winning manuscript, Subjunction.) "Michael Yates is a great poet who has given us such a universe. I consider his The Great Bear Lake Meditations to be by far the most ambitious and successful meditative poem ever written in Canada."-Fred Cogswell