Dennis Doherty

Black Irish Dennis Doherty

My mother said I had it

my father's Black Irish.

She loved him powerfully,

as she did me. Still, I

knew that couldn't be good,

the way she said it, a disease.

But what exactly did it mean?

-- from Black Irish

Often in narrative mode and spilled in blank verse, these poems examine both personal history and shifting parameters of social codes of conduct, the tension between the public and private life. They yearn to love and celebrate human connection, but remain aware of the sometimes tenuous, even dangerous, vagaries of perception, understanding, and motive.