Downstate

The poems in Downstate recount journeys from David Gardiner's native Chicago and Polish neighborhoods of his childhood, to the Southern territories of his distant American past, to the contemporary Ireland where he has lived over the past twenty years. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: "The truth is, that, every half century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors. Human blood, in order to keep its freshness, should run in hidden streams, as the water of an aqueduct is conveyed in subterranean pipes." Gardiner's work does not forget his ancestors, who extend back proudly through past the Civil War in America on one side, and to twentieth-century Poland on the other. These poems explore a rich subterranean heritage uniting the cities and landscapes in which he has lived and worked stretching from Dublin to Chicago to New York uniting pasts & presents as families break and build again. David Gardiner is a writer, publisher and professor, and lives in New York City. He splits his time between the U.S. where he teaches Irish Studies and his duties at Trinity College Dublin. Since 1989, when he attended University College-Galway, he has commuted between Ireland and the U.S. A published poet and critic, in 2004, he became founding editor of the international journal, An Sionnach: A Journal of Literature, Culture, and the Arts (Creighton University Press) and in 2005 he took over directorial duties of Creighton University Press. His doctorate was earned at Loyola University, under the direction of the late Prof. Seán Lucy. Before that, he studied at the University of Chicago, the University of St. Thomas, & Penn State University. He has published numerous books, articles, and poems. Gardiner is currently a visiting scholar at Boston College, New York University, and the University of Ulster.

About the Author :
Dr. David Gardiner is a poet, editor and professor who was born and raised in Chicago. From 2006 to 2010, he was the founder & editor of the international arts journal, An Sionnach, which published Van Morrison, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland, Paula Meehan and Eamonn Wall, among others. He attended the first Writers' Workshop at University College Galway under the direction of Gerald Dawe and was taught there by Thomas Kilroy, John McGahern, Richard Murphy, and others. For over ten years, he directed the Creighton summer program at Trinity College Dublin. He has authored over sixty journal publications, edited over twenty five journals and volumes, and written five books, including the Salmon poetry collections Downstate (2009) and The Chivalry of Crime (2015). He is currently Director of the Center for Irish Studies and Editor of The New Hibernia Review at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN).

Review :
Author David Gardiner reflects wistfully on society and its reverence for its heritage; Downstate is a fine, insightful, and entertaining volume. -- The Midwest "Book Review"