{"title":"Sean Thomas Dougherty","description":"\u003cp\u003eSean Thomas Dougherty has written or edited fifteen books including \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.boaeditions.org\/collections\/sean-thomas-dougherty\/products\/all-you-ask-for-is-longing\" title=\"All You Ask for Is Longing product page\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eAll You Ask for is Longing: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e (BOA Editions 2014) and \u003cem\u003eDouble Kiss: Stories, Poems, Essays on the Art of Billiards\u003c\/em\u003e (Mammoth Books 2017). His awards include a Fulbright Lectureship to the Balkans and an appearance in Best American Poetry. Known for his dynamic readings, he has performed at hundreds of venues, universities, and festivals including the Dodge Poetry Festival, the Old Dominion Literary Festival, and a tour across Albania and Macedonia sponsored by the US State Department. He lives in Erie, PA. For more information about Sean Thomas Dougherty, visit \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/seanthomasdoughertyp.fatcow.com\/\" title=\"Sean Thomas Dougherty homepage\"\u003eseanthomasdoughertyp.fatcow.com\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"broken-hallelujahs-poems","title":"Broken Hallelujahs","description":"\u003cp\u003eSean Thomas Dougherty was raised in an interracial family with an African-American step-father, and a mother whose grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Budapest and the Ukraine. Issues of identity and the complexities of history are central in his work. In \u003cem\u003eBroken Hallelujahs\u003c\/em\u003e, Dougherty uses a variety of experimental and traditional forms including canzone, prose poem, metered, and elliptical poems. These aesthetic devices structure his themes of personal and historical fissure and the reconnection of such fissures. American and African-American musical poems push against a narrative describing Dougherty's journey to Budapest to walk the streets of his great grandmother. As his multiple ancestries are interwoven across time and space, Dougherty's family, the power of memory, and the need to not forget in the face of historical atrocity, provide a safe passageway, to \"Sing across time and space the names of our living, and our dead.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eBroken Hallelujahs\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The poems of Sean Thomas Dougherty are full of intelligence and energy, myth and music, moving in surreal, jagged streams. There is a remarkable range of references here, from Edith Piaf to Biggie Smalls, from Jackson Pollock to Killer Kowalski. Above all, however, there is empathy, that essential element of poetry and humanity, for a dying grandfather, for the insomniacs of the city, for all the forgotten histories the poet cannot forget. To him I say: Keep singing.\" \u003cstrong\u003e—Martín Espada  \u003c\/strong\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Sean Thomas Dougherty writes urgent and voracious poetry. His enthusiasms are infectious. Fortunately, veracity is constant too—in melodic images, some of which shadow each other throughout the poems, and in untypical tributes to family icons and icons of influence. Small worlds become major too, sometimes in just a stroke: 'The insomnia of the doll’s open eyes, out in the alleyway’s trash.' Or when ‘A girl sharpens a blade against a curb.’ Broken Hallelujahs is an exciting and important book of poetry.\" \u003cstrong\u003e—Michael Burkard\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Sky Inside\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy grandfather's hand opens and there is a sky inside. The sky is blue above the hay fields of Western Hungary. It is the Uzhgorod sky. Inside the field of my grandfather's palm is a tiny hay cart, pulled by a slow paced mare, with white tipped tail, a woman with a red babushka gathering (some indigenous flower) on a far hillside. A (bird) flies over my grandfather's wind tossed hair—he is laughing at a joke in a language I do not understand, a tiny laughter like the wheeze of a sick child, there in his breathing, what is that roughness—then the sandpaper against my ears, the cough that pulls back the walls to this room. This room. The open curtains and the day gray with the threat of rain. My grandfather's nostrils hooked up to the oxygen tank. He opens his mouth to breathe like a carp, gasping. I want to close my eyes but I reach for his arm. His hand flexes slightly, closes, then opens again, like a lung. Like a tiny accordion. Adjusting the morphine. The anesthetic music.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8418256709,"sku":"9781929918928","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/BROKEN_HALLELUJAHS.jpg?v=1527683191"},{"product_id":"sasha-sings-the-laundry-on-the-line","title":"Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the spring of 2007 after a series of traumas including a shooting assault that nearly killed his son, Sean Thomas Dougherty left his teaching job and retreated into a small two room flat on the East Side of Erie, PA. For the next two years Dougherty “listened to my neighbors, helped my friend with a heroin habit, fathered a daughter with her, and watched helplessly as another friend went crazy. More than anything I listened. I listened to my walls. I listened to the silence. I listened to my neighbor Sasha, and I wrote as she hung her laundry on the line.” Out of his working class neighborhood, and his travels later sponsored by the US State Department in the Balkans, Dougherty takes us inside language itself: in narratives, monologues, invented forms, lists and prose poem collages, he sings for us his street-driven tough-hearted human arias.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“These soul-infused, deftly crafted stanzas pulse with the rhythms of a poet who lives his life out loud. Sean Thomas Dougherty has always shunned convention in favor of his fresher landscapes—and this book will be the one that stamps his defiant signature on the canon.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Patricia Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Sean Thomas Dougherty's poems vibrate with ‘red and blue braids of light’, in a voice that resonates and transports. Arresting, precise imagery from a poet of grand and memorable vision, this is the gypsy punk heart of American poetry.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—Dorianne Laux\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8420090501,"sku":"9781934414392","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Sasha_Sings_Cover.jpg?v=1527683336"},{"product_id":"all-you-ask-for-is-longing","title":"All You Ask for Is Longing: New and Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor more than 20 years, Sean Thomas Dougherty has negotiated between modernist and avant-garde writing and more populist traditions that extend back to Walt Whitman. His subject matter ranges from basketball to Björk, from blue collar workers to Biggie Smalls, from Luciano Pavarotti to women waiting at a diner outside a prison in Upstate New York. Selecting from the best of eight previous collections, this \u003cem\u003eNew and Selected\u003c\/em\u003e reveals the powerful arc and development of Dougherty’s writing and establishes him as a voice of dissent for the future.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eWe Once Were Stolen Skateboards\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003edoing tricks on the steps of city hall, and names written with a stick in wet cement, we stood like children holding bouquets at the Olympic trials before we leapt, we didn’t hesitate to burst, we made ramps on undeveloped land, drank fifths till we dropped at  abandoned construction sites, a few we burned, dropped the match and dashed, petty larceny of news, we took the chance to steal anything mid-sentence, slow perhaps we talked but we walked like Black Flag through the bar as we grew we knew we were made of light and smoke and blood oranges blossoming in our hands, you  wrinkled your nose at the taste of postage stamps, you kissed like punching a piano or trying to write an autobiography during a fire alarm. One day, you said, we’ll be like an old hotel full of ex-gangsters, each room of us full of retired assassins and lounge singers. Raise your hand if you cling to the fruit-stand vendor, if you weep when he hands you the bag of bruised grown things, (as growing we are all bruised) to teach the air to ask for what it lacks or forfeit the answer to anything can be a crust of bread for our neighbor with his glass eye in the nurshing home as this is the hour please pray for who suffers cartilage splinter on the lost playgrounds the death of nostalgia reveals do no swallow stones or shovels you are the grapevine grasping one of us one day must master the art of eating alone.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for Sean Thomas Dougherty\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“[Dougherty] wears his heart on both sleeves—he is not for everyone: but readers in search of socially conscious vigor, of street energy and “something to hold onto,” may find that Dougherty is just what they need.” \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e“Dougerty has been a staple of the underground poetry scene for nearly 30 years. He’s come up the hard way—no overnight successes, no long-term university positions—and his poetry is as honest and ALIVE as any you’ll read. When people talk about the poetry scene going soft or the scourge of 'workshopped poems' or, God forbid, the death of poetry—it’s because they haven’t read Dougherty’s work. This New and Selected volume covers his full career-to-date and should wake us all up to the underground sound that’s throbbing like a bass drum in the heart of contemporary poetry. Poetry ain’t dead. It’s working in a pool hall in Erie, Pennsylvania.” \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e—BUSTLE\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e“Sean Thomas Dougherty’s poems vibrate with ‘red and blue braids of light,' in a voice that resonates and transports. Arresting, precise imagery from a poet of grand and memorable vision, this is the gypsy punk heart of American poetry.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Dorianne Laux\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e“These soul-infused, deftly crafted stanzas pulse with the rhythms of a poet who lives his life out loud. Sean Thomas Dougherty has always shunned convention in favor of his fresher landscapes—and this book will be the one that stamps his defiant signature on the canon.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Patricia Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e“Dougherty is the Miles Davis of the sentence.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Peter Markus\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e“The poems of Sean Thomas Dougherty are full of intelligence and energy, myth and music, moving in surreal, jagged streams. There is a remarkable range of references here, from Edith Piaf to Biggie Smalls, from Jackson Pollock to Killer Kowalski. Above all, however, there is empathy, that essential element of poetry and humanity, for a dying grandfather, for the insomniacs of the city, for all the forgotten histories the poet cannot forget. To him I say: Keep singing.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Martín Espada\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2014\u003c\/h6\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8420297221,"sku":"9781938160301","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/AllYouAskForIsLonging_Front.jpg?v=1527683164"},{"product_id":"the-second-o-of-sorrow","title":"The Second O of Sorrow","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinner of the 2019 Paterson Poetry Prize\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the 2019 Housatonic Book Award for Poetry\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSean Thomas Dougherty celebrates the struggles, the dignity, and the joys of working-class life in the Rust Belt. Finding delight in everyday moments—a night at a packed karaoke bar, a father and daughter planting a garden, a biography of LeBron James as a metaphor for Ohio—these poems take pride in the people who survive despite all odds, who keep going without any concern for glory, fighting with wit and grace for justice, for joy, every god damned day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eFrom \"The Second O of Sorrow\"\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI breathe the dirty East Side wind\u003cbr\u003epushing past the Russian church, the scent\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof fish \u0026amp; freighters \u0026amp; the refinery\u003cbr\u003efilling the hole in my chest—how many years\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehave piled since I last stumbled out onto the ice\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp; sat down to die.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnly to look up at the geometry\u003cbr\u003eof sky—\u0026amp; stood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto face whoever might need me—\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE FOR \u003cem\u003eTHE SECOND O OF SORROW\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"bm-reviews\" data-isbn=\"9781942683551\" data-width=\"auto\" data-link=\"true\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“The poems of Sean Thomas Dougherty will bless the inside of your home with rain, mist, thunder, the laughter of children, overgrown wild flowers; and make you grateful for this sublime inconvenience.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Roger Bonair-Agard\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Sean Thomas Dougherty’s poems are singing knives that cut your heart so that it beats again!” \u003cstrong\u003e—Phil Metres\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Every poem Sean Thomas Dougherty writes is holy, a psalm for the damned.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Sheryl St. Germain\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003ePublication Date: April 10, 2018\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 978-1-942683-55-1\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2018\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45892104841,"sku":"9781942683551","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/TheSecondOofSorrow_FC.jpg?v=1527683607"},{"product_id":"death-prefers-the-minor-keys","title":"Death Prefers the Minor Keys","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 0);\"\u003eA Publisher's Weekly Top 10 New Release in Poetry\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn his twentieth book, most of which was first composed on the backs of medical forms while on break as a third-shift medical technician, Sean Thomas Dougherty \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ebrings us a memoir-like prose sequence reflecting on disability, chronic illness, addiction, survival, love, and parenthood.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e,  Dougherty offers the reader collaged prose poems, stories and essays full of dreams,  metaphors, aphorisms, parables and narratives of his work as a caregiver.  Moving portraits of Dougherty’s residents, a series of letters to Death, invocations of Jewish ancestry through the photography of  Roman Vishniac, imaginary treatments for brain injuries, and half translated short stories of lives both real and imagined populate this collection. Through these, Dougherty engages issues of labor, the ontology of disability, and the mysticism of life. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e is most of all a kind of love letter to Dougherty’s wife, and her courage and complicity in the face of long-term illness and addiction.  Ultimately, we see how the antidote to despair can reside in daily acts of caring for other human beings.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for\u003cem\u003e Death Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"In the hours between dusk and dawn the lyric voice does not take respite. We go with our weary speaker from room to room as the owls preside over the sleepers and as those who sweep after the living do their daily rounds. In Sean Thomas Dougherty’s deft prose poems, sentence by sentence the speaker keeps vigil, watching over this fragile world. Over hospital intercoms we hear emphatic music urging those within earshot to listen and know that there are songs playing throughout the night. This is an exquisite collection.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eOliver de la Paz, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Boy in the Labyrinth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Sean Thomas Dougherty is the great bard of the American working man. His voice is \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eunmistakable and his poems break the heart and heal it in the same poem, often in the same line.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOne of Sean’s great gifts as a poet is the empathy he extends to the broken world and to his \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ereader, so we always know exactly what he means. I go to Dougherty’s poems for consolation; \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehis enormous humanity gives me hope.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jennifer Franklin, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIf Some God Shakes Your House\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“In the prose poem ‘Magdalene’ Dougherty writes directly to the great saint: ‘Bearer of Unbearable  Griefs. Witness to the Resurrection.’ He then takes on the apostles who denied her full status and ends with ‘who of them could say they know anything of mercy?’ It's a question \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers The Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e presses continuously against the body of the reader. I have never read a book more relentless and fierce and vital in its asking of this question. No easy answer is forthcoming, but no reader can read \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDeath Prefers the Minor Keys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e without having the full palpable weight of that question pressed into their consciousness.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Joe Weil, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backwards Year\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43986131943653,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/DeathPreferesTheMinorKey_CVR_LG.jpg?v=1679939030"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/Sean_Website_Photo.jpg?v=1679938714","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/sean-thomas-dougherty.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}