Michael DeBenedictis is 34, lives in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, and has self-published (via Lulu.com) two volume of original poetry – Mr. Swan’s Song (October 2014) and After the Flight (March 2015) – and two volumes of short stories – Beyond and Between the Veil (June 2015) and When Animals and Folklore Run the Asylum (April 2016). The poetry is deep, philosophical, transcendental, fun, and light hearted at all different moments. The short stories are philosophical, deep, touching, thrilling, and heartwarming, or any random combination of those descriptions, and more, all at once.
His writing influences – poetry and prose – are Kenneth Patchen, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Franz Kafka, John Steinbeck, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ray Bradbury, Antoine De Saint-Exupery, Stephen King, and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.
He has also released 11 albums of original music under the name of his former music project, Mr. Swan’s Song – active from December 2009 to November 2014.