Brendan Galvin: "A Neolithic Meditation"

The Poem of the Week is Brendan Galvin’s “A Neolithic Meditation,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2002-2003 issue (Volume IV, Number 1) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Brendan Galvin is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Habitat: New and Selected Poems 1965-2005 (Louisiana State University Press, 2005), which was chosen as a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. Galvin’s new book of poetry, Ocean Effects, is forthcoming this fall from LSU Press. In addition, his poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Paris Review, and Poetry. Brendan Galvin’s work also has earned various honors for him, including the Folger Shakespeare Library’s O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, the Sotheby Prize of the Arvon Foundation, the International Poetry Forum’s Charity Randall Citation, Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim fellowship.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.