B.A. O'Connell

The themes of my poetry include mental illness, obsession, abusive and difficult relationships, religious doubts/fears/phobias, queer romance, depression, and self-hatred. There are also heavy notes of loneliness, desperate decisions, regrets, and the pain of getting older and being nothing like what you expected. In terms of style, I have emulated and tried to perfect the natural speech rhythm and form long sought after by Jack Kerouac. I believe in the use of poor grammar and colloquial phrases—as well as phonetic spelling to capture what I truly want each poem to be, and that is a true, honest translating of free thought and stream of consciousness into a work of beauty. I think if I want the emotion to be raw and real—I have to say it is just the way I would speak it if I was giving these words to friends, or my therapist, or family out loud. I want people to see my voice on the page, to know what I am handing them in the form of a poem is just as fluid and in the moment and heated