Michael Casey (poet)
Michael Casey (born 1947 in Lowell, Massachusetts) is an American poet.
His first collection, Obscenities, was chosen by Stanley Kunitz for the [1] Yale Series of Younger Poets. Other collections include Millrat (Adastra Press), The Million Dollar Hole (Orchises Press), Raiding a Whorehouse (Adastra), Permanent Party (March Street Press), Cindi's Fur Coat (The Chuckwagon), and The Bopper (Kendra Steiner Editions).
Education
Casey received a B.S. in Physics from Lowell Technological Institute where he had the fortune of taking a class with poet William Aiken.
After military service, Casey began an MS in physics at SUNY Buffalo. With the publication of Obscenities, however, he changed course and pursued creative studies, studying under poets John Logan and Irving Feldman. His master's thesis was an early version of Millrat; his advisor for the project was the poet William Sylvester.
Life
After graduating college in 1968, Casey was drafted into the U.S. Army. His stay at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri provided the material for the later book, The Million Dollar Hole; his work as military police officer in Vietnam's Quang Ngai province is rendered in his debut collection, Obscenities.
Casey brought Alan Dugan's Poems with him to Vietnam. While in Vietnam, Casey discovered, in a book package delivered for the troops, Donald Allen's New American Poetry anthology and, in particular, the early work of poet Edward Field.
His writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, as well as in many literary journals and anthologies.
Works
- The Company Pool, Frigatezine, Issue #2, 2001
- Sand and the Spectre, poetry.com
- A Bummer, April 29, 2003
- Bagley's Sign, The Minnesota Review, ns 65-66
- subscribe, subscribe, The Minnesota Review, ns 65-66
Books
- Obscenities, Yale University Press, April 27, 1972, ISBN: 978-0300015485
- Millrat, Adastra Press, 1999, ISBN 9780938566816
- The Million Dollar Hole. Orchises Press. 2001. ISBN 9780914061861.
Anthologies
- William Daniel Ehrhart, ed. (1989). Unaccustomed mercy. Texas Tech University Press. ISBN 9780896721890.
- Survey of contemporary literature, Frank N. Magill, Salem Press, 1977, ISBN 9780893560508
- The book of Irish American poetry: from the eighteenth century to the present, Daniel Tobin, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, ISBN 9780268042301
Interviews
Reviews
- Stephen Spender, Poetry of the Unspeakable, The New York Review of Books, Volume 20, Number 1, February 8, 1973
- W. D. Ehrhart, Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War, Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 1987, pp.246-265
- Justine Kenna, Writing Vietnam, Student Review, 1999