Terence Winch: Craic-Head Poetry

 After the publication of his early work Childe Harold , Lord Byron (1788–1824) memorably remarked that he “awoke one morning and found myself famous.”  He became, in fact, something of a global superstar, adumbrating the kind of fame later reserved for the likes of Sinatra and Elvis, who weren’t even poets. English lit students will remember his club foot, his incestuous affair with his half sister, his invention of “the Byronic hero,” his death at age 36 while fighting for Greek independence from the Turks. His great masterpiece is, of course, Don Juan , a poem of more than 2,000 stanzas of ottava rima , a nimble 8-line vessel that rhymes abababcc and is borrowed from the Italians. This extraordinary poem, which Byron called an “Epic Satire,” remains funny, biting, and highly readable. The “Fragment” that usually begins texts of the poem includes these lines:                                 And ...

                          Lee Lally, early 1970s, at home in the house on Emory Place in DC.  Photo by John Gossage. I don’t know whether Lee Lally would have become a poet of significant accomplishment had she lived long enough, but I suspect she would have. I met her when I first arrived in Washington, DC in 1971, the same time I met her then husband Michael Lally. We all became good friends. In fact, when Michael and Lee eventually divorced, I was the mutually agreed-upon witness for both of them at the divorce hearing. Lee became a leader in DC's feminist and gay circles for a while, but wound up with a boyfriend towards the end of her short life. In the late ‘70s, Lee and her companion often came down to The Dubliner pub on Capitol Hill when my band, Celtic Thunder, was playing there. She loved the music, the beer, the atmosphere, and I was always happy to see her. Lee's enjoyment of life's pleasures sadly e...

 I’ve played Irish music and written poetry for most of my life, but have generally kept these two worlds separate.  A major exception to this practice took place at St. Mark’s Church in lower Manhattan on November 10, 1982, when an Irish-American night at the Poetry Project (organized by my friend Bob Callahan, who passed away in 2008) took place. Bob asked me and a number of other poets to read, and also invited my band, Celtic Thunder, to play a concert set after the reading. In addition to Bob and me, the line-up included Maureen Owen, Robert Kelly, Susan Howe, Eileen Myles, and Ted Berrigan. It was a historic night — I’m not sure Irish America has seen anything like it before or since.  A friend of Bob’s, whose name I’ve forgotten, took some photos that night, and Bob gave me a contact sheet, which is the source of the photo above. It shows, left to right, Ted Berrigan, Maureen Owen, Robert Kelly, me, Bob Callahan, and Susan Howe (Eileen Myles, for whatever reason, i...

Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Walt Whitman , 1875, chalk on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum.  For six years I worked in the old Patent Office Building in Washington, DC, where the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery are located. The building began its service to the people in 1840, making it one of Washington’s landmarks. I worked there as an editor from 1986 to 1992, before the renovations that were completed in 2006. In my time, the building still had the feel of the 19 th century. I entered every morning through the basement, which always made me think of the catacombs—bulging, thick walls, narrow corridors, stairs that might have met the building code a hundred-plus years ago. What really made this a special place for me was that Walt  Whitman  had trod these very  same corridors during the Civil War,  when the   building became a makeshift hospital: “ Overflow casualties were housed in the Capitol, in churches, tav...

  _________________________________________ I can't remember when I first encountered this poem. I know I stumbled on it accidentally, I think while doing some on-line research during my days as Head of Publications at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. We had launched a poetry feature called "Pulling Down the Clouds" for our membership magazine, and I was always on the lookout for interesting Native work to run as the focus of the feature. I knew immediately I wanted this poem in the magazine. I loved its directness, its snarly, unapologetic, in-your-face attitude. Its completely sophisticated, contemporary use of language. This was not work that catered to white assumptions and stereotypes: just the opposite, in fact. Hers is a complex voice in which humor, bitterness, and hipness all coexist in service to the poem. This was a voice like that of my many Indian friends and colleagues, but one rarely heard by the non-Native world ...