“Ferociously beautiful… With a poised, oneiric precision… Prior folds, unfolds, and refolds the experiences of a speaker’s maternal grandparents’ confinement in a Japanese Canadian internment camp on the brink of World War II, a biracial speaker’s own engagements with prejudice, and the ever-present vexations of cultural memory in such a way that they turn into and illuminate one another everywhere…. That Prior is able to recover meaning from nightmare, silence, half-stories, and dislocation is reason enough to read this ravishing collection. The humility and grace with which he handles his material’s ‘creased [and] overlapping planes’ is another.”
—Lisa Russ Spaar, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Brimming with technical dexterity. Burning Province proves itself to be the type of book that teaches readers how to parse it as they move through its complex web of allusions and images… [Prior] exhibits a deftness that makes him stand out among his peers.”
—Jim Johnstone, The Kenyon Review

“In the intimate and spellbinding world of Burning Province, there are many ways the past is reborn or transformed into the present…. Prior highlights the complexities of relationships to others and the self with a discerning and illuminating eye. Indeed, it is this illuminating gaze that makes Burning Province such a brilliant collection. The poems within are as searing and unforgettable as the fireflies that appear again and again throughout the book… a transformative and transcendent experience.” 
—Wendy Chen, Poetry Northwest

“Lovely, elegant verse...This collection moves from strength to strength, evoking the careful folds of origami one moment and the fall of light on water another... [Prior] can also craft a moody and touching love poem like ‘The Night,’ and then pivot to ‘In Cloud Country,’ a poem of almost metaphysical reach—think John Donne beside the Fraser.”
—Tom Sandborn, Vancouver Sun

“Here and elsewhere, Prior telescopes the distance between the personal, the political, and geographic, his language roving between intimate observations of the self and the world—both natural and manufactured—beyond… the poetry in Burning Province is brief but densely packed, finely tuned and aware."
—Steven W. Beattie, Quill & Quire

“[Prior] moves between past and present, interior and exterior, the real and imagined…And his expert repertoire of internal rhyme, assonance, and emblem enhances and embellishes his craft. Michael Prior’s dexterous genius is substantiated in this aesthetically well-wrought collection. ”
—Keith Garebian, Humber Literary Review