Jan 7, 2020: Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery: Poet, Union Organizer, Floor Sweeper, Prison Administrator, Reviewer, Translator, Journalist Dennis Daly.

Poet Dennis Daly

Dennis Daly lives in Salem Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College with a B.S. degree and earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature at Northeastern University.

For ten years Daly worked for the General Electric Company. He became a union activist and was elected into the leadership of the 9000 member Local 201 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. During these years he published and edited The Union Activist and the North Shore Union Leader. He also was the managing editor of the Electrical Union News.

Subsequently, Daly worked as a department head for the City of Salem and a Director of Community Corrections for the State of Massachusetts.

Daly has been published  in magazines and small poetry journals such as The Sou’wester, The Lyric, Boston Today Magazine, Soundings East, Tendril, Poetry &, Dark Horse, Green House, Lyrical Somerville, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Bagels with the Bards Anthologies, Realms of the Mothers Anthology, Lummox, Zig Zag Folios, Fresh Broth, The Boston Poetry Magazine,  Ibbetson Street, Fox Chase Review, the Aurorean,The Endicott Review, SpoKes, Sunday Poet, Constellations Magazine, Peacock Journal, Solstice, The Ekphrastic Review, Nixes Mate, The Asses of Parnassus, First Literary Review--East, and he is included with two other poets in a chapbook entitled 10 X 3, published by Northeastern University Press. He has been nominated for seven Pushcart prizes-- the first for work published in 2012 (Ibbetson Street), then for 2013 (Wilderness House Literary Review),  2014 (both Muddy River Poetry Review and The Aurorean),  2015 (Muddy River), 2016 (Muddy River) and 2018 (Ibbetson Street).  He was also nominated by Fox Chase Review for Best On The Web 2014 Poetry Anthology. Daly reads his poems occasionally and has featured at a number of venues. He is a member of the Bagel Bards, a group of poets and artists, who meet weekly in Somerville. He regularly writes literary reviews for the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene. He also occasionally writes reviews for The Somerville Times, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fox Chase Review in Philadelphia, Ibbetson Street, and Notre Dame Review.

Daly has published seven books of poetry and poetic translations: The Custom House (Ibbetson Street Press, June 2012); Sophocles' Ajax (Wilderness House Press, July 2012); Night Walking with Nathaniel (Dos Madres Press, May 2014), Sentinel (Red Dashboard Publishing, September 2016), Twenty-One Ghazals by Alisher Navoi (Cervana Barva Press, December 2016), Pantoums (Dos Madres Press, 2018), and The Devil's Artisan, Sonnets from the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (Dos Madres Press, 2019).

In addition Daly has published travel articles and many op-ed pieces in the Salem Evening News. He has travelled widely in Central Asia.

On November 12, 2015 the classics department of Skidmore College sponsored and U.S. veterans performed a professionally directed dramatic reading of Daly's translation of Sophocles' Ajax at Skidmore College.

Daly and his wife, Joanne, have four adult children.