Bill Sullivan is professor emeritus, Keene State College, NH, where he taught courses in American literature and American studies. He is a co-author of Modern American Poetry and Containing Multitudes: Poetry in the United States since 1950. He also co-produced, "Here Am I," a documentary film on the life of Jonathan Daniels, a slain civil rights worker.
He resides in Westerly, Rhode Island.
Bill's recent book, Loon Lore: Poetry and Prose, is available from Bauhan Publishing.
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► Bill's Origami microchaps & selected poems are available below.
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Origami Micro-chapbook |
Selected Poem(s) |
 Cover: Dark Petals
by Lauri Burke
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Every Origami Micro-chapbook
may be printed, for free, from this website. •
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2. Holding on The roller coaster car inches up
the steep hill. Our eyes question blue skies. Hands linked, we anticipate the terrifying thrill. But as we reached the apex and viewed the wrenching drop, our stomachs groaned, our hearts shook. Then gravity and machinery shot us down. Took our breath away as we loosened our grip on the lap bar, then grasped each other, inseparable we thought until you and so many more were no more. Now I cling to what remains-- out of love and fear. Hold on tight until my knuckles turn white. •
Bill Sullivan © 2016
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Pick A Color The single-minded ones
demand that we choose:
the red rose or the white
rose, black or white skin,
blue or grey cloth, green
or orange flag.
We could join the fray,
watch the colors clash
hear the swords clang
and the rifles ring,
sniff the cannon’s smoke
feel between our fingers
the blood soaked soil.
Or we could sit and sink
into Rothko’s rectangles and bands
painted in colors no clan can claim,
in hues and shadings that whisper
our shared sensibilities: tragedy
and doom beauty and ecstasy.
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Bill Sullivan © 2011 |
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Oil Spill: RI, 1/19/96 When the oil barge and tug were grounded
off Moonlight Beach, the officials said there
was no leakage. But in Wakefield oil, carried
by the gale force winds, clung to storefront
windows, windshields and clothes. When they
claimed it was under control, the oil, churned
by wind and sea, had penetrated the salt ponds,
had sullied Block Island, Long Island Sound…
The grim biologist is on a beachhead strewn
with the dead and dying: lobsters, mollusks
star fish , fingerlings and flounder, grebes,
and mergansers. In her oily hands she cradles
a loon. If he could open his eyes their redness
would dazzle you. If he could sound out his
plight, the song would haunt you. If it were
yesterday, he would have dove deep for you,
but today you count and curse the cost of oil.
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mooblock=Haiku No. I. Young sparrow splashing.
Straw-yellow grass fast dying. Bird bath Buddha smiling. •
Bill Sullivan © 2009 |
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On The Seventh Evening On the seventh evening
at this roadside pond ringed with scarlet lupine and blazing goldenrod, we see the blue heron amidst the green- leafed white lilies. On the road above a car speeds northward. Its lights burning dimly in the dusk. The night rises; covers the heron, the pond; reveals another way home. • |