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Jack McCarthy
 Jack
McCarthy calls himself a “standup poetry guy.” Others have called him
"legend—" on the Boston poetry scene, the national Slam scene, and in his own
mind. The Boston Phoenix named him “Best Standup Poet,” The Boston Globe
said, “In the poetry world, he's a rock star.” Poet Stephen Dobyns calls him,
"one of the wonders of contemporary poetry." He’s an engaging minor character in
the film “Slamnation” and was a semifinalist for the Individual Slam
Championship in 2000.
His work
appears in the anthologies "The Spoken Word Revolution," "Poetry Slam," and "Complete
Idiot's Guide to Slam Poetry."
His most recent book, from EM Press, is called "Say Goodnight, Grace Notes." His
website is www.standupoet.net.
Contact: www.standupoet.net
Selected Poem:
IRISH HISTORY EXPLAINED IN 16 LINES
(or Did You
Ever Wonder Why So Many of the
Great Writers
Are Irish? by Jack McCarthy)
As anyone
who’s considered being God
will know, at
Pentecost the gift was not
of tongues,
but ears.
Their
lovely bloody language
was the weapon
did us in. The sound
of it, the
treasures of its lexicon,
the endless
ways of telling what to do,
what god to
worship, and what arse to kiss.
They
pronounced death sentences; listening,
we heard
troubadours. They dictated terms
of our
subjection; faerysong to us.
It wasn’t us
that they betrayed, but English.
They didn’t
live up to it, they were not grand
enough,
magnanimous, and now it’s ours.
By fierce,
barbaric love—because we let
it charm us
and seduce us, we own it now
in ways they
never did, and never will.
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