Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald is a graduate of the University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama, and holds a degree in vocal performance as well as a post baccalaureate degree in prelaw from the University of Louisville. Over the past fifteen years he has held many jobs including singing waiter, food server, telemarketing analyst, urban researcher, barnstormer with the Derby Dinner Playhouse of Clarkesville, Indiana (the best job he ever hated), utilitarian paralegal, occassional voice-over for radio or on-camera for television, telephone operator for the U.S. Secret Service, narrator for the American Printing House for the Blind, substitute teacher (a career that provides fascinating inspiration), former chorister with the Kentucky Opera, Childrens Library Assistant and currently Reference Library Assistant with the Louisville Free Public Library.

A few years ago he began to meditate while listening to the chants of the Gyoto Monks and the Tibetan Tantric Choir in an effort to deepen his meditative state. From the silence an inner metric pulse emerged that gave way to the sound of a voice.  He spent many evenings reading Allen Ginsberg's "Plutonian Ode" aloud accompanied to the music of Peter Gabriel's "Passion."  Once, when suffering from pnuemonia, he staggered into the Bingham Poetry Room at the University of Louisville, searching for Gregory Corso's Poem "Marriage," in a desparate and not unsuccessful attempt to laugh.  He began to keep a journal of his dreams. He engaged the services of a shaman and underwent a soul retrieval.   He journeyed to find his power animal.  He called his college  alumni office and listed his occupation as "Poet for the City of Louisville."  In 1995 he won $500.00 in a poetry slam and journeyed to Shree Muktananda Ashram in the Catskill Mountains for his thirty-eighth birthday.

He takes himself too seriously.

Mr. McDonald is the winner of the 1995 Strassenfest Poetry Slam and his work has appeared in several literary supplements of the LOUISVILLE ECCENTRIC OBSERVER, as well as the Lexington based publication, TECHNIQUE.  His work has been featured on the Internet in the WebZines COSMIK DEBRIS and BOHEMIAN INK.  He can also be found on the Allen Ginsberg Memorial Pages SHADOW CHANGES INTO BONE, GOODBYE BUDDHA POET and COSMIC BASEBALL ASSOCIATIONS MEMORIAL PLATE.  His first chapbook, WRITE OF PASSAGE, has recently been published by APOCRYPHA/Gris*Gris Press and future work will appear in SPLEEN Magazine, an anthology of poetry by Negative Capability Press, and a chapbook by WhiteFields Press entitled LIKE NEON.

His goal in life is to live with no credentials and no apologies.