Talking with Sean McGrath, author of the poetry book “From a Balcony in Palos Verdes”

In his second full length collection, author, educator and poet Sean McGrath turns his eye to our local landscape. McGrath, who teaches literature and creative writing at Chadwick School, where he has also resided for the past five years, remarks upon the many inhabitants of our Palos Verdes in an intimate style. The author celebrated the successful release of his collection on Saturday, June 4 with a live reading from the balcony where he constructed many of the poems. The book is now available in print on Amazon and at Nantucket Crossing in Palos Verdes.

Palos Verdes Pulse Editor-in-Chief Lianne La Reine connected with Sean to find out what to expect from the collection and what is next for the young author.

Lianne La Reine: So, how long have you lived in Palos Verdes and how is the landscape reflected in your work?

Sean McGrath: I moved to Palos Verdes in 2017 after spending the first 28 years of my life in New England. Living in faculty housing on the campus of Chadwick School, I was in awe of the beauty of the natural landscape — the variety of trees and thick brush in the canyons. Like many, the caws of the peacocks struck me, but I also appreciated the quiet of the hill. How in the evening you hardly heard a car or airplane. It would really allow me to tune in and wake up my poet’s eye.

LLR: What other areas of our region do you highlight in your book?

SM: There’s “San Pedro Sonder,” about the docks of San Pedro in the morning, “We’ve Lost the Trail” about getting lost in the Portuguese Bend Nature Reserve, “Yield For Horses,” about our bridle trails. The third section of the book features a lot of ocean imagery, especially in “Redondo Illusion” and “At Sea, After Light.” And throughout the majority of the works you can feel the sensibilities of someone taking in the landscape here with a new, fresh viewpoint.

LLR: Are there other subjects or themes you cover in the book?

SM: Well, the majority of the poems were composed through the height of the pandemic. At that point I was living alone with my pets, teaching from my home to my students through the computer. Isolation and solitude creep in, along with a fear for the health of our planet. Environmental awareness, human impact on the environment, and recognition of our ancestral duty to the landscape is important for me. Ultimately the speaker in the poems seems to reconcile the isolation he is facing with the hope for a better, more verdant planet.

LLR: You observe in one of your poems “peafowl calls in the air, hatchlings / in the sycamore— / there is no cloning them: / these new days just keep coming, one at a time.” What is your writing process like, where do these lines come from?

SM: From periods of disciplined observation. From my balcony I can see a great variety of trees and birds, the bridle trails running through the town, and all the way out to Mt. Baldy and the San Gabriel range. Each day I would go out there I’d find something new to see or hear, feel or smell, or I would bring a new mood to the occasion. If I was in need of a boost I could always call on my favorite writers as well: Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Pablo Neruda, Wendell Berry among them. Poetry is like a philosophy of being in and observing the world — once you have your senses attuned, the link from mind to hand to pen to paper is almost seamless.

LLR: And what is next for you as a writer and educator?

SM: Well, I leave five great years here at Chadwick School in Palos Verdes to begin a family. My wife is due in September, and we will be moving to Arizona to live with her parents and rear the little one. The writing will continue. My wife likes “Everything Smells Like Pee” for the title of my next collection. But it was important for me to punctuate this chapter in Palos Verdes with a collection devoted to my time in it and the way it has brought life into me.

LLR: Thank you so much for your time, Sean!