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Geoffrey G. O'Brien

{{Short description|American poet}}

{{For|the New York City critic and poet|Geoffrey O'Brien}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2024}}

{{Infobox writer

|name = Geoffrey G. O'Brien

|image = Geoffrey G. O'Brien (born 1969) at UC Berkeley Lunch Poems.png

|caption = Hosting UC Berkeley's Lunch Poems in 2022

|birth_name = Geoffrey Gordon O'Brien

|birth_date = {{bda|1969|5|10}}

|birth_place = United States

|death_date =

|death_place =

|language = English

|occupation = Poet, lecturer

|genre = Poetry

}}

Geoffrey Gordon O'Brien (born May 10, 1969){{cite web |url=http://lccn.loc.gov/n2001040686/ |title=Library of Congress Authorities |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= |date= |work= LCNAF Cataloging in Publication data - LC Control Number: n 2001040686 |publisher=LOC |accessdate=March 2, 2014}} is an American poet. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Iowa, O'Brien has taught at Brooklyn College, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been the Distinguished Poet in Residence at St. Mary's College of California and the Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently teaches. He also teaches in the Prison University Project at San Quentin.[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19617 Mixed Mode- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More][http://english.berkeley.edu/contact/person_detail.php?person=59 English.berkeley.edu] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090102043324/http://english.berkeley.edu/contact/person_detail.php?person=59 |date=January 2, 2009 }}

On November 9, 2011, O'Brien suffered a rib injury in an altercation with police, while attending a peaceful protest.[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/the-police-riot-at-berkel_b_1091208.html?ref=college&ir=College Jesse Kornbluth: The Police Riot at Berkeley: If They'll Beat a Poet Laureate, Will They Kill a Student?]

O'Brien's poem "Fidelio" was published in the March 19, 2018 issue of The New Yorker magazine.[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/fidelio Geoffrey G. O'Brien:Fidelio]

Works online

  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20130730162028/http://theoffendingadam.com/2010/06/28/from-metropole/ "from Metropole" The Offending Adam, Issue 22]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20120402152400/http://www.nojournal.com/five/obrien.htm "Logic of Confession"] at No: a journal of the arts.
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20130218195050/http://bostonreview.net/BR34.5/obrien.php "Poem Beginning to End," Boston Review, September/October 2009]
  • [http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19617 "Mixed Mode," Poets.org]

=Criticism=

  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20061003131838/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5900 An essay] on "Tradition and the Individual Talent" by T. S. Eliot.
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20060207150235/http://bostonreview.net/BR31.1/obrien.html "Keeping Company,"] an essay which explores the work of poet Michael Palmer
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20070730204416/http://www.modern-review.com/archives/v_ii/_gobrien07.html A Critical Response to John Ashbery's "Clepsydra"]
  • [https://archive.today/20110711061905/http://fwix.com/chicago/share/d2d89471f7/poem_present_discussion_on_poetics "The Left Margin"] a talk on Whitman and Ashbery

Works

Review

{{Quote|O'Brien touches on the most pressing questions and dilemmas of being human in this time and place with welcome playfulness, for example, situating "tower" and "Guadalajara" as an off-rhyme, explicitly noting the juxtaposition within "the rhyme of laws and loss," and doubling up negatives, as in "not here but not/ Not." In so doing, O'Brien produces many bizarre and beautiful linguistic combinations that shed light on peculiarly American anxieties of the 21st century[https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-940696-66-9 "Fiction Book Review: Experience in Groups" Publishers Weekly]}}

{{Quote|If O'Brien's poems have a sameness of diction and rhythm that verges on monotonous and impersonal, it's the same sameness of heartbeat and breath, prayer and meditation. It's a poetry that asks for patient attention, and gives back all the void's abundance.[http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2002summer/obrien.shtml "A review of The Guns and Flags Project", Rain Taxi] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016102130/http://raintaxi.com/online/2002summer/obrien.shtml |date=October 16, 2013}}}}

Political protest

On November 9, 2011, O'Brien took part in Occupy Cal, a demonstration on the Berkeley campus in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. According to reports O'Brien spoke out to a police officer who was hitting a Berkeley student because he would not break his link in a human chain. The police officer hit O'Brien in the ribs, a reaction he would later call "brutal."[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2011/11/poet-geoffery-obrien-joins-the-occupy-berkeley-protest-fray "Poet Geoffrey O'Brien joins the Occupy Berkeley protest fray"]

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • [http://workingforthecity.blogspot.com/2009/06/gillian-hamel-interviews-geoffrey-g.html "Gillian Hamel interviews Geoffrey G. O'Brien," Studio One Reading, June 4, 2009]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20070101132147/http://www.quemadura.net/2A_dir.html 2A]
  • Geoffrey G. O'Brien's poem [http://www.gulfcoastmag.org/index.php?n=3&si=46 "Six Political Criteria" in Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts (24.1)].
  • [http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520250192 O'Brien's books] at UC Press.

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Category:21st-century American poets

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:1969 births

Category:English-language poets

Category:Saint Mary's College of California

Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty

Category:Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry

Category:University of Iowa alumni

Category:Brooklyn College faculty