About

Mike Lala grew up in the western United States and Tokyo, and lives in New York.

He is the author of the poetry volumes The Unreal City (Tupelo Press, 2023) and Exit Theater (Colorado Prize for Poetry, 2016); the chapbooks Points of Return, In the Gun Cabinet, and Twenty-Four Exits: A Closet Drama; and a contributing translator to Tales of Dionysus: The Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Poems appear in A Public Space, American Poetry Review, BOMB, Boston Review, Fence, The Brooklyn Rail, and Hauser & Wirth’s Ursula.

Lala’s works for performance and installation include Whale Fall (2021–22, with Iris McCloughan and Nobutaka Aozaki), Madeleines: Tell Me What It Was Like (2020, with Iris McCloughan), and Infinite Odyssey (2018, with Homer). He has presented work at the 92nd Street Y (for Anne Carson's Tenth Muse), The Knitting Factory, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, New Ohio Theatre, Pioneer Works, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, The Tank NYC, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Contact: lalamichael@gmail.com