My Solo Ohio

My Solo Ohio is a single long-breath poem chronicling three days and nights spent alone on Ohio Island off Vinalhaven, Maine. What begins as a simple solo becomes a mythic rite of passage: tarp shelters and tides, hunger and humor, fog and revelation. Paul ÓLaoghaire moves through the island’s weather and his own interior weather with equal honesty, weaving survival, memory, and meaning into one continuous thread. Across the poem, the island becomes companion, mirror, teacher, and trickster. A crab named Fred, a captain’s hat, a stubborn stove, and the vast Atlantic all take their places in a story that is both deeply human and quietly sacred. The poem carries the reader through solitude, frustration, wonder, and return — not as separate chapters, but as one unfolding experience. My Solo Ohio is a testament to what happens when a person steps outside the noise of the world and listens long enough for the land, the tide, and the self to speak back.