november ninth: poems written when i was supposed to be working from home is a collection of poems composed in a single day in 2020. Though the institution was closed due to a hurricane, teachers were required to hold classes remotely and complete tasks, despite the possibility of power outages and evacuations. The poems explore how our need for human connection is undermined and confused by labor. We want to feel human when our work often requires us to be machines; we envy other animals whose lives, rustic and simple, don't require permission. november ninth is an irreverent, silly, and angsty act of rebellion for the workers of the world. This publication is brought to you by Dipity Press #2 in the community chapbook series.

I was born in Ireland in 1957 and I hold an honors degree in Applied Psychology from University College Cork. I've worked at all sorts of jobs in my lifetime, but none remotely related to the mechanisms of the mind. I was a lifeguard in Ireland, a production line worker in Amsterdam, and a janitor in Denmark. I was a fisherman in the Holy Land and a drummer in a rock band called, Bill's Board Stiff. When I arrived in New York City, I got a job as a plasterer's mate on a building site on Long Island. The loose translation in layman's terms for a job like that... a human cement mixer. From there, I graduated to banging nails, and slowly, after weaving my way through ne'er-do-wells, mamelukes, biker bullies, the bloods and the crips, and all other indigenous reprobates specific to the construction industry, I arrived out the other end, not at all unlike a bowel movement... a sub-contractor. I worked in New York City for thirty-five years and enjoyed every minute of it.
I'm retired now and living in Ireland doing what I love best; painting and writing. I go back to New York from time to time. It will always be a part of me. It's my second home.