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About Me
About Me
I'm an Associate Professor of English and Inaugural Chair of LEAD Seminars (our introduction to the liberal arts for new students) at St. Mary's College of Maryland. My training is in rhetoric and composition and modenist literature, but during COVID lockdown I started to find connection and purpose in writing poetry. Some of my poetry explores my Irish family history; the idea of a felix culpa (or fortunate fall) in which catastraphe leads to some knid of redemption; the complex dymanics between humor and doubt; and the power of humor. I've also written poems that explore mental and physical illness. I like experimenting with closed form poetry; for example, I've had a sestina, a ghazal and a sonnet published in Rattle. Form helps me surprise myself with my own writing; this includes Japanese forms, especially haibun, which I've published in Modern Haiku, Contemporary Haibun Online, and MacQueen Quinterly. I'm also a poetry reader for Chestnut Review and a squad member (frequent panelist) atb _ThePoetrySpace. Originally from Belleose, Queens, New York, I live with my beloved wife, Jen Fossell, and our cats Josie, Fergus, Grace and Desmond) in California, Maryland.
This picture shows President Kennedy meeting my father, Patrick O'Sulliva, a bellman at the Caryle Hotel in New York City--though of course, my dad isn't mentioned in most captions forthe picture. He happily carried bafs and worked the door at the Cryle for over 40 years. The ode below reflects on what that work meant o him and what he means to me.
An Ode to Him, Y'Know
Ghazal of Removal
For this poem, linked below, I'm indebted to Sarah Ederer for her stunningly poignant poem "Basic Needs," a Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist for 2022, from which I took my ghazal's radif, or repeating line. My favorite couplet is the one about removing a cuckoo, "that old imposter, selfhood." Another couplet alludes to my colon cancer surgery. I've been alluding to my recent history of cancer a lot; poetry is an excellent way to process.
I submitted to Rattle's Prompt Poem of the Month a mere 109 times before finally being slected for my sonnet "Reentry," shown above, which reflects on a long-ago private reverie on the eve of a public catastophe. I'm grateful to Rattle (and, in particular series editor Katie Dozier) for teh prompt, for slecting my poem, and for nominating it for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best New Poet anthologies.
An Irish Malediction
(After “An Irish Blessing”)
May the road rise up to meet you,
and may it beat you with a blackthorn stick.
May the wind be always at your back
and may it blow you far from here.
May the sun shine warm upon your face—
your pale, Irish, defenseless face.
May the rains wash away your fields,
and until we meet in hell,
May the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand
and clap.
Me visiting the site of my mom's O'Mahony granparents' home in Cloundereen, Country Cork, Ireland. I visited after attending the Cork Poetry Festival in the Summer of 2024. The site is still owned by my cousins and is now part of West Cork Secret, a beautifully wooded children's activity center.
"To the Quasy Feeling in the Pit of My Stomach" and "Self-Portrait of a Breathless Reader"
The pair of poems, published in ONE ART in June 2025, lays bare my initial experiences with colon cancer, from colonoscopy to the aftermath of surgery. Click the thumbnail below to read the whole poems.
From Contemporary Haibun Online 20.2
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