Dooley, David (Allen) 1947-

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DOOLEY, David (Allen) 1947-

PERSONAL: Born November 3, 1947, in Knoxville, TN. Education: Johns Hopkins University, B.A., 1968; University of Tennessee, M.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—San Diego, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, WorldTech Editions, P.O. Box 541106, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1106.

CAREER: Matthews and Branscomb, San Antonio, TX, former paralegal, beginning 1982; Sheppard, Mullen, Richter & Hampton, San Diego, CA, paralegal.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, 1988, for The Volcano Inside; Yellowglen Prize, 2003, for The Zen Garden.

WRITINGS:

The Volcano Inside (poems), Story Line Press (Santa Cruz, CA), 1988.

The Revenge by Love (poems), Story Line Press (Brownsville, OR), 1995.

The Zen Garden (poems), WorldTech Editions (Cincinnati, OH), 2004.

Poems and essays have been published in numerous journals, including Hudson Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Hollins Critic.

SIDELIGHTS: David Dooley is a highly regarded poet, who, according to a contributor to Contemporary Poets, is similar to earlier American poets such as Robert Browning and Robert Frost in that for him "literary schools and theories hold little interest … but real life, lived by real people, contains the stuff of poetry." Dooley's first volume of poetry, The Volcano Inside, won the inaugural Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize in 1988 and heralded him as one of America's best new poets. Commenting on the volume, the Contemporary Poets essayist noted, "In long lines that drive through subjects with the haunting echo of classic blank verse or in clipped, short-lined stanzas, Dooley gives eloquent voice to lovers, parents, and loners and to mind readers, movie makers, joggers, country and western singers, and so many overlooked 'others' who make up our world, the people we see when we look in the mirror."

In his second volume of poetry, The Revenge by Love, Dooley writes about relationships, sex, love, and art in poems focusing on such subjects as the bond between American painter Georgia O'Keeffe and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the decision of a gay man to forgo a political career in favor of a hedonistic life, and ruminations of a young writer who begins to question his affair with his best friend's girlfriend. Commenting on the poems about O'Keeffe and Stieglitz in a review in Booklist, Donna Seaman noted, "Much has been written about their relationship, but rarely as succinctly and perceptively as in Dooley's poems."