In the midst of his thirties, Phillips took his new-found perceptions and began to write. He says he writes about everything in his life. He admits to filtering experiences, seeing them through the eye of a writer, and always wondering how each scenario will play itself out best in a poem or story. He hasn't completely abandoned the music he devoted years to.  It has found its way into his style of writing in the form an innate feel for tempo. 

"The thing I am most conscious of is rhythm.  I think that's from pounding music in my head for so long.  I don't know if I consciously set out to use rhythm, but it's there because it doesn't seem right to me if it isn't," said Phillips.

BUKOWSKI'S HONESTY

Without writing with a formula, or applying calculated reasoning to his writing, Phillips finds himself becoming more comfortable with revealing bits and pieces of his personal life.  It was after reading writer Charles Bukowski, the man who made crassness a human trait to be proud of,  Phillips knew that the honesty Bukowski flooded this poems and novels with was something he also wanted to explore in his own writing.

"This was a guy who was willing to show his ugliest side," Phillips said. "When you do that, you make yourself more sympathetic in a certain way because there's ugliness in everyone but no one wants to admit it.  I never used to want to admit it.  When I came across someone who does, it inspired me to write about situations that embarrassed me. That's the hardest thing, to type out situations when you were a prick, or you did the wrong thing, or you said something completely inappropriate.  But when you type it out and you put it out there it's like lifting a huge weight off of yourself."
 
As strong as his writing is, Phillips also reveals a tenderness. The irony, the cynicism, the humor,  and the disappointment are all impacted with a pin-prick of optimism. 

You can never leave a Michael Phillips piece without feeling just a little bit 
more human. Never.  
 

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