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Mary Beth O'ConnorAssistant ProfessorWriting
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of this fishbowl earth
upward rushing toward
young lilac,
night mountain,
ancient star
I am an animal planted,
feet sifting the sandy bottom
worn head
just breaking the surface
for a quick breath
I grew up in northern New Jersey: Irish Catholic family, parochial schools, nuns who taught us to diagram sentences. In the early seventies I studied Folklore & Oral History at the University of Maine, Orono, then went on to graduate work in Cultural Anthropology at Syracuse University. I dropped out after receiving my M.A. and passing my Ph.D. exams (but before fieldwork and dissertation) to move to a "rustic" cabin in the Berkshires and work with schizophrenic adolescent boys at a residential institution. For the next 20 years or so I held a variety of low-paying jobs: Ithaca Journal delivery person, frat cook, part-time photographer... and finally returned to school in 1990 to pursue my Ph.D. in English/Writing, which is what I had really wanted to do all along (it takes some people awhile to figure things out). I now live in an old farmhouse in the country with my partner whose two grown children often come around to visit. We have a lovely golden retriever who expresses her pleasure at our return home by grabbing one of our shoes and parading it around until we offer a biscuit in exchange. I've been teaching at IC since 1996.
