Sills

Michael O’Brien was born in Granville, NY in 1939; studied at Fordham, the University of Paris, and Columbia; worked as a librarian; was one of the Eventorium poets, where his first book was published in 1967; taught at Brooklyn and Hunter; worked for many years editing technical publications; wrote The Summer Poems, Conversations at the West End, Blue Springs, Veil, Hard Rain, The Ruin, The Floor and the Breath, 17 Songs, At Schoodic, Sills, Six Poems, Swift Moons Repair Celestial Losses, and Sleeping and Waking. He lived in New York and died in November 2016.

• The FallsThe RoomSummerDuring SicknessPersephoneSundayWindowWaking“the child’s secret, who you sit down next to”“from mayday to solstice, parades”SkinCrossingAnother SundayPostcardJean ArpDeathmask: HeineSwan“I come out, see my shadow, go back to sleep”For Ruth“Eurydice, forget me not”“nullity is cinelinear, the calliopes of surrealism”Half MoonThe NoteEarly MarchRimbaudBrooklyn“reason & evening: a phonebooth”“a cage of need, a dream”“between babytalk & ‘the Odyssey of Geist’”“A dream of reason calm as a garden”“Ophelia’s ghost, like an unimproved road”After a Cadence of Hart CraneIn FeverJackstrawsPerceptual Difficultiessong & imageMarcel DuchampFour ChorusesThe DaysPostcards from NambeEast BranchThree California PoemsFinistere“The song the torso sings”SundownCassisThe PassengerThe Days, AgainEarring“The split seed-pods of the grass”“Monk had his Baroness like Rilke”“The world and its likeness”Four Places“the dandy you pass in the intersection”The TermsThe LoomIn the ElevatorDamageRadioEchocardiogramLives of the SaintsA TranslationChambers StreetAmuletAngelsMemoryFrom an AnthologyFormals & Bridals4 SongsRainStonesRubricAchill IslandWinterAt Schoodic14 SongsA Pillow-BookThe InstructionsArthur DoveIn Memory of Frank KuenstlerFor Iso & SusanTrains Going ByLate AugustApplecrossA QuarryStations“Horses standing in rain”

Memory finally connects everything with everything, as if the world were an immense pun: a broadside, against the grain, every synapse firing. O’Brien records this pun with a verve and zeal that is both remarkably fresh and reliably consistent. His wit and speed are ready vehicles for a quite frequently skeptical engagement with the world around him. We should feel lucky to have these poems gathered under one roof.