Michael Lally

Michael Lally was born in Orange, N.J. in 1942, and was the youngest of seven in an Irish-American family of cops, priests, and politicians. He started out playing piano and reading his poetry in coffeehouses and bars in 1959. By 1980 he wrote twenty books, including the poetry collection Rocky Dies Yellow (1974) and a collection of prose and poetry, Catch My Breath (1978). After creating several poetry reading series in D.C., New York, and L.A. in the 1970s and '80s, Lally was declared "The Godfather of Poetry" by several magazines, newspapers and fellow poets.