Lawrence Welsh
Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Lawrence Welsh lives in El Paso, Texas. A first generation Irish American and award-winning journalist, Welsh has published nine books of poetry, including Begging for Vultures: New and Selected Poems, 1994-2009 (University of New Mexico Press). Lawrence Welsh’s poetry, fiction, reviews, essays, as well as journalistic writings, have appeared in more than 200 national and regional magazines, journals, newspapers and anthologies.
Welsh is an English professor at El Paso Community College. He’s also lectured, read and taught at UCLA, New Mexico State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Murray State University. His new Unlikely Book is Pachuco Skull with Sombrero: Los Angeles, 1970. Photo by Richard Baron.
like cornered in juarez
or the rough stoppage
on a dead end street
like this is your other
this is the price of looking
of behaving in a rational
and irrational way
crazy white boy from south central
and who showed you that
certainly not canvas back hogan
or another that returns only losses
from a lost country
