Kevin Boyle is an award-winning poet with three published collections and numerous poems appearing in highly respected periodicals. He grew up in Philadelphia and received degrees from Penn, Boston and Iowa. He has taught writing and literature in New York, Iowa and North Carolina, where he currently lives with his wife.
once it opens – poetry
once it opens includes poems that speak about birds and a bee, garlic and pecans, fathers in Ireland and Italy, with a Catholic backstory and a hint of despair. And while Death says, "Look at me, look," the writer plays with words, cracks a joke on the head of an angel, and remembers a life lived among paperboys, immigrants, and the bleak song of history.
Early praise for once it opens
“Kevin Boyle is a surgeon and sculptor in these lovely poems that carve out memories, dreams, reflections—and a call for (poetic) justice.
His lyric touch and joyful ironies are central to his curious mindset and his ‘genuine new worlds.’
Kevin cherishes the ethical utterance here and the heartfelt sounds and sense of a good story.”
—William Allen, author of The Birth of the Atlantic and other poetry collections
For decades I have loved the poetry of Kevin Boyle, and the poems in “Once It Opens” are among my favorites. Boyle has the uncanny ability to see the moments of gentleness in the midst of cruelty, as he engages a turbulent America and his Irish Catholic childhood. This new book offers a capaciousness of subjects: rabbits and wrens, garlic and crickets, Pierro della Francesca in Italy and the streets of Boyle’s native Philadelphia, to name a few—all things vibrant and alive.These are deeply human poems that embrace an imperfect world with its joys and woes.These are poems to believe in.
—Stuart Dischell, author of The Lookout Man, Good Hope Road, Evenings & Avenues, Dig Safe, Backwards Days, and Children With Enemies.