Robert Breen
Profession and company: Boston Fire Dept.
How do you celebrate your Irishness? Writing poetry about my heritage and support my Irish Center here in Portland, Maine
Name a hero you admire and why? Seamus Heaney, he showed me how to stand alone when facing insurmountable trouble. Seamus was honest, lighthearted, remarkable in persevering the truth with his poetry told with a slant, a grounded genius. In the famous meeting on the train with a Sinn Féin spokesman, Seamus writes of their encounter in the poem "Flight Path", his words that stayed with me for life, “If I do write something, whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.”
Something people would be surprised to know about me... A fireman who writes and loves poetry.
Biography: Born and raised in Boston, Breen dedicated decades to serving on the front lines as a Boston firefighter and District Inspector, a medal and awards recipient, before embracing his passion for writing. His celebrated poem, "The Eighth Circle," first published in The Harvard Summer Review, stands alongside award-winning works such as "The Reef" (Honorable Mention from Key West Poets & Writers), "Beyond Cold" (Margaret F. Tripp Poetry Award), "Deception Island" (published in Communion Arts Journal), and "The Boy Who Jumped Out of a Night Sky", (Boston Literary Magazine and The Big Table Publishing Company).
