Thomas O'Grady
Biography
Thomas O'Grady - Photo Courtesy of the Author
Thomas O’Grady was born and grew up on Prince Edward Island. He was educated at the University of PEI, University College Dublin, and the University of Notre Dame. He is currently Professor of English, Director of Irish Studies, and a member of the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston where he has taught since 1984. He lives in Milton, Massachusetts with his wife and three daughters. His first book of poems, What Really Matters, was published in the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series in April of 2000 by McGill-Queen’s University Press. He has completed the manuscript for a second volume of poems, Blue Serge, and is completing a manuscript for a volume of short fiction, The Great Antonio and Other Stories.
His poems and short fiction have been published on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border and on both sides of the Atlantic in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including: Agni, Agenda, Verse, Crab Orchard Review, Harvard Review, Kansas Quarterly/Arkansas Review, North American Review, Canadian Literature, Queen’s Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Dalhousie Review, The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, and Windsor Review. His poems have also been included in Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land, Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada, Agni 30th Anniversary Anthology, The Book of Irish American Poetry from the 18th Century to the Present, Through the Window of a Train: A Canadian Railway Anthology, and The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991-2008.
His articles, essays and reviews on literary and cultural matters have been published widely in scholarly journals and general-interest magazines: Canadian Literature, Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Arc: Canada’s National Poetry Magazine, Proteus: A Journal of Ideas, The Journal of Popular Culture, Éire-Ireland, James Joyce Quarterly, Études Irlandaises, Irish University Review, New Hibernia Review, Joyce Studies Annual, and Poetry Ireland Review. His essay “My Coeval Archtop,” a spinoff of his other life as an after-hours jazz guitarist, was listed among the “Notable Essays of 2007” in Best American Essays 2008.
Biographical Notes provided by the Author.
His poems and short fiction have been published on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border and on both sides of the Atlantic in a wide variety of journals and magazines, including: Agni, Agenda, Verse, Crab Orchard Review, Harvard Review, Kansas Quarterly/Arkansas Review, North American Review, Canadian Literature, Queen’s Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Dalhousie Review, The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, and Windsor Review. His poems have also been included in Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land, Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada, Agni 30th Anniversary Anthology, The Book of Irish American Poetry from the 18th Century to the Present, Through the Window of a Train: A Canadian Railway Anthology, and The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991-2008.
His articles, essays and reviews on literary and cultural matters have been published widely in scholarly journals and general-interest magazines: Canadian Literature, Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, Arc: Canada’s National Poetry Magazine, Proteus: A Journal of Ideas, The Journal of Popular Culture, Éire-Ireland, James Joyce Quarterly, Études Irlandaises, Irish University Review, New Hibernia Review, Joyce Studies Annual, and Poetry Ireland Review. His essay “My Coeval Archtop,” a spinoff of his other life as an after-hours jazz guitarist, was listed among the “Notable Essays of 2007” in Best American Essays 2008.
Biographical Notes provided by the Author.
Each year, predictably
as birds or seasons--
sometimes early,
sometimes late--
we return to find the scene
along our half-mile
stretch of Island shore
exactly
as we held it in our minds,
its soul intact.
If only our souls too
could always feel
as whole as then, as
thoroughly at home as when,
surrounded by
a quarrelsome choir
of gulls and raucous crows--
the world's discordant chorus--
a half-dozen
great blue herons
strike their so serenely
steady pose. How we envy
such unstudied grace--
their stock-still grip
in tidal pools and eddies,
the undistracted gaze of
creatures designed to bear
precisely
the burden of their own calm
waiting. What must we do
to have our souls’ weight
lifted so, to make
the half-composed complete?
What might dull the clamor
of this crow-and-gull life?
Last week,
on a mid-December morning,
dying for home, we saw
a solitary heron
in full flight.
Published in What Really Matters (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000).
Used with Permission of the Author.
as birds or seasons--
sometimes early,
sometimes late--
we return to find the scene
along our half-mile
stretch of Island shore
exactly
as we held it in our minds,
its soul intact.
If only our souls too
could always feel
as whole as then, as
thoroughly at home as when,
surrounded by
a quarrelsome choir
of gulls and raucous crows--
the world's discordant chorus--
a half-dozen
great blue herons
strike their so serenely
steady pose. How we envy
such unstudied grace--
their stock-still grip
in tidal pools and eddies,
the undistracted gaze of
creatures designed to bear
precisely
the burden of their own calm
waiting. What must we do
to have our souls’ weight
lifted so, to make
the half-composed complete?
What might dull the clamor
of this crow-and-gull life?
Last week,
on a mid-December morning,
dying for home, we saw
a solitary heron
in full flight.
Published in What Really Matters (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000).
Used with Permission of the Author.
Critical Analysis: Thomas O'Grady's "Transmigration:" memory and realist through the experience of home
Thomas Stubbs (Canadian Poetry) and Monica Grasse (ACPA Managing Editor 2015)
Thomas O'Grady’s “Transmigration” simultaneously contrasts and combines reality and memory to create a universal experience of home for the reader. O’Grady accomplishes this complex reading by giving a personal account of returning to his home in Prince Edward Island and comparing it with his memories. He describes both the spiritual rebirth experienced when returning and his yearning for the familiar when removed. O’Grady’s reality is that he does not physically live in PEI, but only spiritually through memory; however, the strong feelings he experiences when home strengthens his memories so that his home is clear wherever he goes.
When O’Grady returns home, his joy immediately evokes a sense of assurance:
we return to find the scene
along our half-mile
stretch of Island shore
exactly
as we held it in our minds,
its soul intact (5-10).
When observing the island after it had previous been locked in memory, the familiarity creates a calm that his present world is missing. Such sudden, welcome emotion makes the author question what his everyday life could be like if he felt such comfort wherever he went:
If only our souls too
could always feel
as whole as then, as
thoroughly at home… (11-14)
O’Grady’s desire for the home he once knew is his affirmation to the reader that there is no place that completes us more than home. Thus, O’Grady explores how people with a similarly positive experience of home one can find a sense of belonging no matter where they are by embracing their situations and bringing memory to the forefront of their realities.
While O’Grady basks in the serenity of home, the calm he feels contrasts the chaos he knows he will return to. However, to keep himself in the moment, the author envisions his reality through island imagery, describing the world as a “quarrelsome choir/of gulls and raucous crows” and as a “discordant chorus” (18). O’Grady uses seagulls and crows to symbolize the stresses of urban living: the life of the “crows” and “gulls” is a metaphor of the way individuals are constantly surrounded by people, unable to get a moment of peace (17). Such tension strains the soul and creates a sense of yearning.
Despite O’Grady’s belief that, like the birds which migrate in the summer, he will always return home in order to regain a piece of his identity, he further argues that the idea of “home” is carried with us no matter where we go. O’Grady uses the image of a “great blue heron” amidst the earlier chaos of crows to represent his identity within the otherwise discordant reality. The author’s memory of home allows him to “strike…so serenely” his “steady pose” (21-22).
The poem’s form reinforces O’Grady’s ability to go back and forth between reality and memory. The flow and rhythm of “Transmigration” resembles the continuous flow of waves crashing onto shore; just as waves always return to the cliff’s edge, the author can always return home through memory. O’Grady demonstrates how the pain of leaving strengthens and gives confidence to his reality by returning to the image of the heron. O’Grady identifies with the solitary bird because of the loneliness he feels when away from home; “dying for home, we saw/a solitary heron/in full flight” (38-40). The heron symbolizes the calmness and tranquility that the soul needs and which is found after personal reflection, and which allows people to spread their wings and fly.
“Transmigration” first considers the author’s lived reality then presents his desires as confined in memory. By the end of the poem, O’Grady the most of one’s reality and finding home in the moment, O’Grady demonstrates to readers how to take home’s calmness with them wherever life may lead.
Works Cited (for analysis):
O’Grady, Thomas. What Really Matters. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. 37-38.
Thomas O'Grady’s “Transmigration” simultaneously contrasts and combines reality and memory to create a universal experience of home for the reader. O’Grady accomplishes this complex reading by giving a personal account of returning to his home in Prince Edward Island and comparing it with his memories. He describes both the spiritual rebirth experienced when returning and his yearning for the familiar when removed. O’Grady’s reality is that he does not physically live in PEI, but only spiritually through memory; however, the strong feelings he experiences when home strengthens his memories so that his home is clear wherever he goes.
When O’Grady returns home, his joy immediately evokes a sense of assurance:
we return to find the scene
along our half-mile
stretch of Island shore
exactly
as we held it in our minds,
its soul intact (5-10).
When observing the island after it had previous been locked in memory, the familiarity creates a calm that his present world is missing. Such sudden, welcome emotion makes the author question what his everyday life could be like if he felt such comfort wherever he went:
If only our souls too
could always feel
as whole as then, as
thoroughly at home… (11-14)
O’Grady’s desire for the home he once knew is his affirmation to the reader that there is no place that completes us more than home. Thus, O’Grady explores how people with a similarly positive experience of home one can find a sense of belonging no matter where they are by embracing their situations and bringing memory to the forefront of their realities.
While O’Grady basks in the serenity of home, the calm he feels contrasts the chaos he knows he will return to. However, to keep himself in the moment, the author envisions his reality through island imagery, describing the world as a “quarrelsome choir/of gulls and raucous crows” and as a “discordant chorus” (18). O’Grady uses seagulls and crows to symbolize the stresses of urban living: the life of the “crows” and “gulls” is a metaphor of the way individuals are constantly surrounded by people, unable to get a moment of peace (17). Such tension strains the soul and creates a sense of yearning.
Despite O’Grady’s belief that, like the birds which migrate in the summer, he will always return home in order to regain a piece of his identity, he further argues that the idea of “home” is carried with us no matter where we go. O’Grady uses the image of a “great blue heron” amidst the earlier chaos of crows to represent his identity within the otherwise discordant reality. The author’s memory of home allows him to “strike…so serenely” his “steady pose” (21-22).
The poem’s form reinforces O’Grady’s ability to go back and forth between reality and memory. The flow and rhythm of “Transmigration” resembles the continuous flow of waves crashing onto shore; just as waves always return to the cliff’s edge, the author can always return home through memory. O’Grady demonstrates how the pain of leaving strengthens and gives confidence to his reality by returning to the image of the heron. O’Grady identifies with the solitary bird because of the loneliness he feels when away from home; “dying for home, we saw/a solitary heron/in full flight” (38-40). The heron symbolizes the calmness and tranquility that the soul needs and which is found after personal reflection, and which allows people to spread their wings and fly.
“Transmigration” first considers the author’s lived reality then presents his desires as confined in memory. By the end of the poem, O’Grady the most of one’s reality and finding home in the moment, O’Grady demonstrates to readers how to take home’s calmness with them wherever life may lead.
Works Cited (for analysis):
O’Grady, Thomas. What Really Matters. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. 37-38.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
O'Grady, Thomas. “Advice from Milton Acorn.” Canadian Literature. (1997): 139.
---. “Artery.” Agni. 2008: n. pag.
---. “Artery.” Agni 30th Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Askold Melnyczuk. 56 (2002): n. pag.. Boston: Boston University Press, 2008.
---. “Bloodlines (verse).” Queen’s Quarterly 107 (2010): 314-15.
---. “Breaking New by Claran Carson. Harvard Review 25 (2003): n. pag.
---. Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada. Eds. Tammy Armstrong,et. al. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2002. 1st ed.
---. “Colour Blind.” The Antigonish Review 126 (2015): 77.
----. “The Decisive Moment: the Metronome All-Stars, 1949.” The Journal of American Culture. 28.4 (2005): 377-89.
---. “Defining Family.” Crab Orchard Review 11.2 (2006): n. pag.
---. Delivering the News. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2019.
---. “Dublin…Paris…Behan…Joyce.” Joyce Studies Annual (2004): 93-118.
----. “Echoes Of William Carleton: Benedict Keily And The Irish.” Studies In Short Fiction 28.3 (1991): 321. Academic Search Premier.
---. “Finders Keepers by Seamus Heaney.” Harvard Review 23 (2002): n. pag.
---. “The Heart of Heaney’s Sonnets.” Dalhousie Review 80.3 (2000): n. pag.
---. “Little Chandler’s Song of Experience.” James Joyce Quarterly 27.2 (1990): 399-405.
---. “Makeover.” Agenda. N.d.: n. pag.
---. “The Morning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze.” The Journal of Popular Culture. 38.6 (2005): 1123-125.
---. “The O Bruadair Inheritance: Some Left a Name Behind Them.” New Hibernia Review 8.2 (2004): 9-23.
---. The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991-2008. Eds. Orlando Ricardo Menes. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.
---. “Provincial Life: The Early Novels of Benedict Kiely.” Irish University Review 38.1 (2008): 20-37.
----. “Reading the Lay of the Landscape in William Carleton’s “Ned M’Keown”.” New Hibernia Review 14.2 (2010): 133-144. Project MUSE. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.
---. “Reading Poems as Prayers.” 171 (2012): 123.
---. "Reflection: Spending Time with My Father Meant Finding Myself Reverting Back to Who I Had Been." The Guardian, theguardian.pe.ca, 21 June 2020.
---. “Review: Our Double Time.” Poetry Ireland Review 59 (2008): n. pag.
---. “Some Left a Name Behind Them.” Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land Eds. Hugh MacDonald and Brent MacLaine. Charlottetown: Acorn Press, 2001. 1st ed.
---. "The Spuds Will Bloom in Baile Beag." Arrowsmith Press, arrowsmithpress.com.
---. “Stopping in Rock Barra.” Dalhousie Review 77.3 (1997): n. pag.
---. “The Straying Student: Breandan O’hEitWS Lig Sinn igCathu.” Études Irlandaises 15.2 (1989): 95-102.
----. “That Moaning Saxophone: the Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze.” The Journal of Popular Culture. 38.6 (2005): 1123-125.
---. “They Became Mermaids.” Canadian Literature 159 (1998): 139.
---. “Two Poems.” The Fiddlehead 250 (2012): 69-71.
---. “Underfoot.” Harvard Review 26 (2004): n. pag.
---. What Really Matters. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
Secondary Sources
Cobb, Mo Duffy. Rev. of Delivering the News by Thomas O'Grady. The Malahat Review 208 (Autumn 2019): 106.
Compton, Anne. “Doubly-Crossing Syllables: Thomas O’Grady on Poetry, Exile, and Ireland.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne. 26 Jan. 2001.
---. “Interview: Doubly-Crossing Syllables: Thomas O’Grady on Poetry, Exile, and Ireland.” SCL/ELC. 26.1 (2001): n. pag.
Urschel, Katrin. "'The Wild Colonial Boy' Returns: Ethnicity And The Search For Home In Contemporary Irish-Canadian Literature."Australasian Canadian Studies 28.1 (2010): 57-75. MLA International Bibliography.
O'Grady, Thomas. “Advice from Milton Acorn.” Canadian Literature. (1997): 139.
---. “Artery.” Agni. 2008: n. pag.
---. “Artery.” Agni 30th Anniversary Anthology. Ed. Askold Melnyczuk. 56 (2002): n. pag.. Boston: Boston University Press, 2008.
---. “Bloodlines (verse).” Queen’s Quarterly 107 (2010): 314-15.
---. “Breaking New by Claran Carson. Harvard Review 25 (2003): n. pag.
---. Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada. Eds. Tammy Armstrong,et. al. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2002. 1st ed.
---. “Colour Blind.” The Antigonish Review 126 (2015): 77.
----. “The Decisive Moment: the Metronome All-Stars, 1949.” The Journal of American Culture. 28.4 (2005): 377-89.
---. “Defining Family.” Crab Orchard Review 11.2 (2006): n. pag.
---. Delivering the News. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2019.
---. “Dublin…Paris…Behan…Joyce.” Joyce Studies Annual (2004): 93-118.
----. “Echoes Of William Carleton: Benedict Keily And The Irish.” Studies In Short Fiction 28.3 (1991): 321. Academic Search Premier.
---. “Finders Keepers by Seamus Heaney.” Harvard Review 23 (2002): n. pag.
---. “The Heart of Heaney’s Sonnets.” Dalhousie Review 80.3 (2000): n. pag.
---. “Little Chandler’s Song of Experience.” James Joyce Quarterly 27.2 (1990): 399-405.
---. “Makeover.” Agenda. N.d.: n. pag.
---. “The Morning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze.” The Journal of Popular Culture. 38.6 (2005): 1123-125.
---. “The O Bruadair Inheritance: Some Left a Name Behind Them.” New Hibernia Review 8.2 (2004): 9-23.
---. The Open Light: Poets from Notre Dame, 1991-2008. Eds. Orlando Ricardo Menes. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.
---. “Provincial Life: The Early Novels of Benedict Kiely.” Irish University Review 38.1 (2008): 20-37.
----. “Reading the Lay of the Landscape in William Carleton’s “Ned M’Keown”.” New Hibernia Review 14.2 (2010): 133-144. Project MUSE. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.
---. “Reading Poems as Prayers.” 171 (2012): 123.
---. "Reflection: Spending Time with My Father Meant Finding Myself Reverting Back to Who I Had Been." The Guardian, theguardian.pe.ca, 21 June 2020.
---. “Review: Our Double Time.” Poetry Ireland Review 59 (2008): n. pag.
---. “Some Left a Name Behind Them.” Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land Eds. Hugh MacDonald and Brent MacLaine. Charlottetown: Acorn Press, 2001. 1st ed.
---. "The Spuds Will Bloom in Baile Beag." Arrowsmith Press, arrowsmithpress.com.
---. “Stopping in Rock Barra.” Dalhousie Review 77.3 (1997): n. pag.
---. “The Straying Student: Breandan O’hEitWS Lig Sinn igCathu.” Études Irlandaises 15.2 (1989): 95-102.
----. “That Moaning Saxophone: the Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze.” The Journal of Popular Culture. 38.6 (2005): 1123-125.
---. “They Became Mermaids.” Canadian Literature 159 (1998): 139.
---. “Two Poems.” The Fiddlehead 250 (2012): 69-71.
---. “Underfoot.” Harvard Review 26 (2004): n. pag.
---. What Really Matters. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000.
Secondary Sources
Cobb, Mo Duffy. Rev. of Delivering the News by Thomas O'Grady. The Malahat Review 208 (Autumn 2019): 106.
Compton, Anne. “Doubly-Crossing Syllables: Thomas O’Grady on Poetry, Exile, and Ireland.” Studies in Canadian Literature / Études en littérature canadienne. 26 Jan. 2001.
---. “Interview: Doubly-Crossing Syllables: Thomas O’Grady on Poetry, Exile, and Ireland.” SCL/ELC. 26.1 (2001): n. pag.
Urschel, Katrin. "'The Wild Colonial Boy' Returns: Ethnicity And The Search For Home In Contemporary Irish-Canadian Literature."Australasian Canadian Studies 28.1 (2010): 57-75. MLA International Bibliography.
