Conor O’Callaghan
John McAuliffe in Conversation with Conor O’Callaghan
In honor of John McAuliffe’s Selected Poems, we’re revisiting his 2013 interview with Conor O’Callaghan in The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry III. In the interview, John McAuliffe discusses writing some of his earliest poems, relocating with his family to Manchester, what it means to write an “Irish poem,” and his relationship to American…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Crush” by Conor O’Callaghan
It rises, nameless and requited, from the feather of a goose
in grass to the anglepoise’s reflection in the window
still shining after its switch has been pushed to O.
Poem of the Week: “A Glass of Water” by Conor O’Callaghan
I pour a glass of water for myself.
I watch what greys it gathers from the room.
It’s not to drink. I want the wanting of
a glass and water sleep can come between.
“Looser, Freer, and a Bit Wilder”: An Interview with Conor O’Callaghan
Conor O’Callaghan’s newest book of poetry Live Streaming has just been published in North America, and for months we’ve been anxiously awaiting this exciting release. O’Callaghan has been busy giving readings for the book, most recently here in the US, where he went coast to coast visiting five states in five days before returning home to England. WFU Press intern Maddie Baxter caught him via Skype at the tail-end of this trip to ask him a few questions about the book, his process, and the personal nature of this extraordinary new collection.
Continue ReadingEnter the Goodreads giveaway for Live Streaming!
We’re giving away copies of Conor O’Callaghan’s newest book, Live Streaming, on Goodreads now through Oct. 28! Don’t miss your chance; enter the Goodreads giveaway below.
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “The Narrator” by Conor O’Callaghan
during the break in chapter,
gets up to stretch beneath a skylight
and hears seagulls, small girls running.
Poem of the Week: “The Swimming Pool” by Conor O’Callaghan
It goes under, the cursor, whenever I place my finger
on the space bar and hold it like this for a minute.
The blue screen shimmers the way a pool’s sunlit
floor moves after the splash of a lone swimmer.
A festive celebration for WFU Press
In the U.S., there’s no better day to celebrate Irish heritage and our connections with Ireland than St. Patrick’s Day. Green rivers, cheesy shamrock hats, and buckets o’ Guinness aside, we’re always happy to advocate for the rich Irish culture that exists in our country. This year, we’ve been celebrating with the publication of a very special and unique book…
Continue ReadingThe secret is out… Announcing our latest book, The Shack.
Today’s the day! It’s finally here! We’ve been waiting so long to tell you about our newest book, The Shack: Irish Poets in the Foothills and Mountains of the Blue Ridge, that it’s hard to believe we can finally talk about it. In The Shack, contemporary Irish poets reflect on their time in the foothills and mountains…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “January Drought”
As storm clouds roll into Winston-Salem, Conor O’Callaghan writes of a somewhat drier world—yet the haunting sentimentality of his poetic voice still manages to soak us to the bone. January Drought It needn’t be tinder, this juncture of the year, a cigarette flicked from car to brush. The woods’ parchment is given to cracking asunder the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week, with congrats to Conor O’Callaghan
I wanted his sky-blue Ford, its sheetrock, its transmission issues.
I listened to his low-down yodelling skimming sunk studs
and snake rattles like wind chimes round his mantle in the hills
and parables waiting for windows to arrive where some lunchbox
was always asked what sort of lunchbox he took Roy for.
Poem of the Week: “Mid to Upper Seventies” by Conor O’Callaghan
Here in North Carolina, we’re experiencing our first week of temperatures in the 90s, so mid to upper seventies sounds pretty good to us. Conor O’Callaghan’s poem leads us to a comfortable sunny spot. Mid to Upper Seventies He rests The Narrow Road to the Deep North on an arm of the sunroom sofa-bed. He walks to…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “September” by Conor O’Callaghan
September It must be cliché to think, however brief, that light on a wall and our voices out in the open are the pieces we shall look upon in retrospect as a life. There is a danger of circumstance smothering even the smallest talk. If a breeze shakes another colour from the trees we say…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Pitch & Putt” by Conor O’Callaghan
Pitch & Putt Its is the realm of men and boys joined in boredom, the way of life that sees one day on a par with the next and school breaks dragged out too long. Theirs is the hour killed slowly, the turn for home in diminishing threes and twos, the provisional etiquette of shared…
Continue Reading“The Importance of Breathing”: An Interview with Conor O’Callaghan
Nicole Fitzpatrick conducted this interview with Conor O’Callaghan in January 2014. Fitzpatrick is an M.A. English candidate at Wake Forest University and works as an intern at Wake Forest University Press. O’Callaghan lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina from 2005-2007 during which time he taught at Wake Forest University. Much of The Sun King connects to…
Continue ReadingSnow, Joyce and Voicemails: A Closer Look at Conor O’Callaghan’s “Three Six Five Zero”
Today’s snow-blanketed Wake Forest University campus. How does Conor O’Callaghan seamlessly connect a snowy North Carolinian landscape, James Joyce and voicemails? Ripe with isolation, introspection, recovery and renewal, O’Callaghan’s latest collection, The Sun King, whispers secrets and sings the emergence of light born of the soul’s darkest moments. Technology flashes in and out of The Sun King, yet O’Callaghan’s…
Continue ReadingBEST OF 2013: WFU Press Style
It’s that time of year again. Christmas trees are going up, people are frantically searching for just the right present, holiday plans are being made and, of course, The Best Of lists are being released all month. Maybe you watched that video about the best of Youtube in 2013 or heard Miley Cyrus was named…
Continue ReadingThe Sun King Review
Conor O’Callaghan’s forthcoming The Sun King was recently reviewed by Billy Ramsell in The Stinging Fly. Ramsell describes O’Callaghan’s style as “an almost Shakespearean tendency to render reality not only by means of literary devices but in terms of those very tropes and conceits. Again and again in this his superbly reflexive fourth collection parts of…
Continue ReadingPoetryFest
Over the weekend, the Irish Arts Center in New York City hosted its 5th annual PoetryFest. Contemporary Irish poets including our own Conor O’Callaghan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and Colette Bryce (from the Wake Forest Series 3) all read poetry at this event. We are delighted to be publishing O’Callaghan’s new book, The Sun King, later this year.
Continue ReadingHappy Belated Birthday Conor O’Callaghan
“I toast my new age. I drink its tongue-roll, its wheel-whirr, on the road to Montecarlo. Quarantaquattro, quarantaquattro, quarantaquattro …” Conor O’Callaghan turned 45 on September 20th. All of us here at Wake Forest University Press toast Conor as he embarks on quarantecinque. The quote above is from The Pearl Works, a collection of 52…
Continue ReadingConor O’Callaghan’s The Sun King: Shockingly Vulnerable and Painfully Tender
In his newest book, The Sun King, Conor O’Callaghan invites readers into the shockingly vulnerable and sometimes bitter consciousness of a speaker who offers an unedited confession of his most intimate experiences.
Continue ReadingThe Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume III, Launches in Paris
The Paris launch earlier this month included readings by the anthology’s featured poets, an appearance by Conor O’Callaghan, Volume III editor and author of the forthcoming book The Sun King, as well as a lecture on the state and future of Irish poetry by Wake Forest Press director Professor Jefferson Holdridge. We at the press…
Continue ReadingConor O’Callaghan
Poet Conor O’Callaghan may best be known to fans of Wake Forest Press for his books of poetry such as Fiction and Seatown and Earlier Poems. He will also be editing our Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume III, which will be released next year. However, did you know that he also wrote a memoir about the Roy…
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