My Dark People, a new volume of verse by Irish-American poet T.S. Kerrigan is a profound look at the lessons of a difficult past with the hope for a better and richer future. It should be the property of every one who loves the best of Irish and Irish American culture! It appeared last month with all the fanfare of a major literary event. X.J. Kennedy, renowned poet and former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review describes My Dark People in the current issue of Chicago 's Light Quarterly as a book "this country sorely needs by one of the finest and most entertaining American poets alive." Distinguished poet Timothy Murphy has said that in this book "Kerrigan's tenor has the register of John McCormack." It is a sometimes grave, sometimes hilarious, always profound view of the modern world by a man who has tasted victory and defeat at its highest levels. "A master of understatement...
Reviews
“Kerrigan is, without hyperbole, a major new word visionary.” Robert Benn, Coastlines
“I regard him as one of the finest and most entertaining poets alive.” X. J. Kennedy, Light Quarterly
“An Irishman, a Catholic, he has studied long at the singing school where Yeats is the cruel headmaster. Kerrigan’s tenor has the register of John McCormack’s.” Timothy Murphy, Central Ave Press, Albuquerque , NM
“Kerrigan is a real, honest-to-goodness poet whose poems pass the supreme test — they can send chills down your back.” Polly Warfield, Backstage West
THE AUTHOR
T.S. Kerrigan is the grandson of Irish immigrants and a dual citizen of Ireland and the United States . His verse has been published on both sides of the Atlantic , in the Garrison Keillor Anthology: Good Poems (Viking Penguin, 2002) and Literature and Its Writers (Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2006) My Dark People is his first full-length collection of poetry. While emerging as a promising poet in the late 1990s, Kerrigan was also recognized as one of Los Angeles ’ foremost trial lawyers during that period. He was President of the Irish American Bar at the conclusion of that decade and was well-known as the lawyer who successfully argued the constitutionality of a statute enacted in the depths of the Great Depression to protect workers, in the United States Supreme Court in Lujan v. Fire Sprinklers in 2001, after that statute had been struck down in the lower federal courts. He also has been a theater critic and member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle, a tireless promoter of Irish drama and Irish actors, one of the co-founders of the Bloomsday celebration each June 16th at Molly Malone’s Pub, and a correspondent for The American Reporter, the oldest daily newspaper on the Internet.
actors, one of the co-founders of the Bloomsday celebration each June 16th at Molly Malone’s Pub, and a correspondent for The American Reporter, the oldest daily newspaper on the Internet.