Cauldron of the Black Buddha, poems by Jack Grady
American-born Jack Grady, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a past winner of the Worcester County (Massachusetts) Poetry Contest, is a founder member of the Ox Mountain Poets, based in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland. He considers himself to be a sort of Rip Van Winkle of poets in the sense that he returned to writing poetry in 2014 after a ‘long sleep’, that is, a hiatus of many years, some of which were passed working in the Middle East. Since then, he has had many poems published in English and some in French, as well. His work has appeared in Crannóg, Poet Lore, A New Ulster, The Worcester Review, North West Words, Mauvaise Graine, Outburst Magazine, The Runt, The Galway Review (online), Algebra of Owls, and in the anthologies And Agamemnon Dead, A New Ulster’s Voices for Peace, Poetry Anthology Centenary Voices April 2016, and 21 Poems, 21 Reasons for Choosing Jeremy Corbyn. In April 2016, he read in Morocco at the 3rd annual Festival International Poésie Marrakech, as the poet invited by its committee to represent Ireland.
© Jack Grady