Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty was born in NYC, and grew up in Brooklyn, NY; Toledo, Ohio; and Manchester, NH. Over the decades he has worked in a newspaper plant, as a college lecturer, as a houseman in a pool hall, and as a writer and performer. Dorianne Laux has called him “the gypsy punk heart of American poetry.” Dougherty is the author of 15 books, including The Second O of Sorrow (BOA Editions, forthcoming 2018); All You Ask for is Longing: Poems 1994-2014 (BOA Editions); Scything Grace (Etruscan Press, 2013); and Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line (BOA Editions, 2010), which was a finalist for Binghamton University's Milton Kessler Poetry Book Award. His has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and his work appeared in Best American Poetry 2014.

Known for his dynamic readings, Dougherty has performed at hundreds of venues, including in Albania and Macedonia where he appeared on national television, sponsored by the US State Department. He lives in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he works as a medical technician.