Where Did Poetry Come From: Some Early Encounters

Geoffrey O'Brien, born in New York City, has published nine collections of poetry, among them FLOATING CITY (Talisman House, Publishers, 1995), Red Sky Café (Salt Publishing, 2005), Early Autumn (Salt Publishing, 2010), THE BLUE HILL (Marsh Hawk Press, 2018), and most recently WHO GOES THERE (Dos Madres Press, 2020). He is also the author of prose works including Hardboiled America (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1981), Dream Time: Chapters from the Sixties (Viking, 1988), The Phantom Empire (W W Norton & Co Inc, 1993), The Browser's Ecstasy (Counterpoint, 2000), Sonata for Jukebox (Counterpoint, 2004), WHERE DID POETRY COME FROM (Marsh Hawk Press, 2020), and Arabian Nights of 1934 (Terra Nova Press, 2023). His writings on film, music, theater, and poetry have appeared frequently in The New York Review of Books and other periodicals. He worked as editor at Library of America for 25 years, retiring as editor in chief in 2017. He lives in Brooklyn.