Michael Lally

Michael Lally was born in Orange NJ 1942, youngest of seven, all musicians, in an Irish-American family including a cop, a teacher, a priest, etc. Served in the military from 1962-66, then attended The U. of Iowa’s Writers Workshop on The G.I. Bill and ran for sheriff of Johnson County, Iowa, in ’68 on The Peace and Freedom ticket. First book published in 1970, last book, The Village Sonnets, 2017, and thirtieth book due Spring of 2018 (Another Way To Play from 7 Stories Press). Honors include: The 92nd St. Y Poetry Center’s 1972 Discovery Award for The South Orange Sonnets; two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships (the second, in 1981, was attacked on the floor of Congress, where the NEA was accused of rewarding “pornography”—for the poem “My Life”—in the first attempt to defund the NEA); 1997 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for “Excellence in Literature” for Cant Be Wrong; 2000 American Book Award for It’s Not Nostalgia. Day jobs have included jazz musician, college lecturer, night guard, limousine driver, TV and film actor, script writer and “doctor,” editor, columnist, book reviewer for The Village Voice and The Washington Post among other publications, etc. Writes the blog Lally’s Alley on poetry, politics, movies, and other arts and activism.