The Poems of Charles O'Donnell, CSC

Charles O'Donnell deserves to be better known than he is. Many of his lyrics are so finely crafted they can rank with the best verses of his time, and some are touchstones: a delicate scent of Keats in "The Silver Birch," a gentle reminder of Villon in "New Saints for Old." He spoke highly of Emily Dickinson before she was fashionable, and he brushed shoulders with important poets, hosting William Butler Yeats at the University of Notre Dame, spending days with good friend Joyce Kilmer. Some of his finest moments were reserved for tributes to the dead and musing on natural beauty. He celebrates the great and the not so great. He chronicles war, and he muses on triumphs. Everywhere O'Donnell surprises a reader with fresh images and phrases: "sandaled with violets," "snowed over with the moonlight." These are the words of a significant voice who apprehends the world with new energy and can translate experience into language with easeful art. Some of his poems stun with such metaphysical splendor that a reader is forced to consider the lines repeatedly. Suspending disbelief will bring readers hours of joy feeling the world as O'Donnell felt it a century ago.