Geoffrey Gordon O'Brien (born May 10, 1969) is an

American poet The poets listed below were either born in the United States or else published much of their poetry while living in that country. A B C D E F G H I–J K L M N O P Q *George Quasha (born 1942 in poetry, 1942) R ...

. Educated at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

, O'Brien has taught at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been the Distinguished Poet in Residence at

St. Mary's College of California Saint Mary's College of California is a private Catholic college in Moraga, California, United States. Established in 1863, it is administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college offers undergraduate and graduate programs with a total stud ...

and the Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where he currently teaches. He also teaches in the

Prison University Project Mount Tamalpais College, formerly known as the Prison University Project, is a two year liberal arts college that offers an associate's degree program in Liberal Arts and intensive college preparatory courses in math and writing to mainline resi ...

San Quentin San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in ...

. On November 9, 2011, O'Brien suffered a rib injury in an altercation with police, while attending a peaceful protest. O'Brien's poem "Fidelio" was published in the March 19, 2018 issue of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' magazine.

Works online

"from ''Metropole''" ''The Offending Adam'', Issue 22

at ''No: a journal of the arts.''
"Poem Beginning to End," ''Boston Review'', September/October 2009

"Mixed Mode," ''Poets.org''

Criticism

An essay
on "Tradition and the Individual Talent" by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

.
"Keeping Company,"
an essay which explores the work of poet Michael Palmer
A Critical Response to John Ashbery's "Clepsydra"

"The Left Margin"
a talk on Whitman and Ashbery

Works

* ''The Guns and Flags Project'' (

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 2002) * ''2A'' (Quemadura, 2006; collaboration with poet Jeff Clark) * ''Green and Gray'' (

, 2007) * ''Hesiod'' (The Song Cave (chapbook), 2010) * ''Poem with No Good Lines'' (Hand Held Editions (chapbook), 2010) * ''Metropole'' (

, 2011) * ''People on Sunday'' (

Wave Books Wave Books (established 2005) is an American independent press focusing on the publication of poetry, with a focus on innovative, contemporary poetry and poetry in translation. Books published by Wave have been finalists for and winners of the Pu ...

, 2013) * ''Three Poets: Ashbery, Donnelly, O'Brien'' ( Minus A Press, 2013) * ''Experience in Groups'' (

, 2018)

Review

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.""Poet Geoffrey O'Brien joins the Occupy Berkeley protest fray"
/ref>

References

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070101132147/http://www.quemadura.net/2A_dir.html ''2A''* Geoffrey G. O'Brien's poe
"Six Political Criteria" in ''Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts'' (24.1)

O'Brien's books
at UC Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, Geoffrey G. 21st-century American poets Harvard University alumni Living people 1969 births English-language poets Saint Mary's College of California University of California, Berkeley faculty Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry University of Iowa alumni Brooklyn College faculty