The Last Poet in the Anthology

Abstract

The Last Poet in the Anthology David McLoghlin (bio) Usually the youngest among the oneswho still have hyphens for death days—maybe, finally a woman, or a name heavywith vowels—I’m represented by a single poem.So don’t think me ungrateful. Even though I wrote itmyself, there’s a curt strangeness, rereading my bio,that leaves out my life: “work published in Shindig,Black Rhino, and Coterie. Has lived in Romeand Antwerp. Now teaching Special Needs in Trim.”I know the crabby elder statesman anthologisthas given me the nod to stand for this generation.I know speech after long silence; it is rightand just, to be here. And after all the definitered brick edifice becoming the canonin the previous pages, there’s a tentativenessabout my single poem: but something growing,nonetheless. Even though it might justbe breath on the window. [End Page 389] David McLoghlin DAVID MCLOGHLIN is the author of Waiting for Saint Brendan and Other Poems (Salmon Poetry, 2012). He won second prize in the 2008 Patrick Kavanagh Awards and an Irish Arts Council Bursary in 2006. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, he now lives in New York City. © 2013 by the Johns Hopkins University Press