Time is slippery.
At Some Pointopenly acknowledges this while exploring the intersections between past and present, childhood and adulthood, midlife and mortality. Joyously and solemnly tugging on the threads that connect us—to life, to the planet, to each other—David O’Connell finds meaning in the small things. An earworm, a sudden memory, the arrival of a fox in the neighborhood, even camaraderie among other patients awaiting colonoscopies—all are grist for O’Connell’s ability to view the world simultaneously anew and as it once appeared. From the quotidian to the profound, this is a collection that hovers around your consciousness, reshaping your own vision and insight.David O’Connell’s previous poetry collections include
Our Best Defenseand the chapbook
A Better Way to Fall. His work has appeared in
New Ohio Review,
Ploughshares,
Cincinnati Review,
Southern Poetry Review, and
North American Review, among other journals. O’Connell lives in Rhode Island with his wife, the poet Julie Danho, and their daughter. His work can be found at
davidoconnellpoet.com.
“Unable to carry
their overloaded backpacks, my daughter
and her friends wheel them to school
like battered airline luggage, struggling
to pull them along their shortcut
through the cemetery. As they cross,
she tells me, they’ll each, out loud, say
I'm sorry, though she’s not sure who
started this, and, pressed, rolls her eyes,
embarrassed to admit the reasons they do.”
—Excerpt from “Intervale Cemetery”
I.
Late at Night, I Watch
The Blue PlanetWe’re Thinking of the Black Hole at the Center of the Galaxy
Fresh Air
I’m Happy Because My Daughter Is Sad
Intervale Cemetery
Period Pilƒ&