Mark Conner and Elaine Klaassen
BY ELAINE KLAASSEN
You don’t usually think of a boxer as a lovable guy, but in the case of Mark Connor, you do. I can say without hesitation that he is, indeed, a lovable pugilist. I worked with this dreamer, idealist, melancholy soul at Southside Pride and Pulse of the Twin Cities many years ago. In his short time there, he left the indelible mark of a person passionate about justice and community.
Now, after years of writing and writing, training boxers and immersing himself in the Catholic culture of Northern Ireland and the Native culture of this country, not to mention the culture of our twin city, St. Paul, Connor has published “It’s About Time (Millions of Copies Sold for Dad)”, an intriguing book about his life and thoughts.
A distinctive feature of the book’s format is the mix of Connor’s poetry with the narrative autobiography. To me, his book is about the poetry and where it comes from. If you read the prose, you’ll understand the poetry. He tells about striving to be successful as a writer, he tells the story of Leonard Peltier, he tells about the hunger strike in Northern Ireland, he tells about sparring and injuries in the ring, he tells of caring for abandoned children in an overnight shelter OOK REVIEWS for five years. And all of this finds its way, distilled, into the poems. It’s almost as though the book’s nineteen poems add another 200 pages to the book’s literal 86. There’s a lot to think about in each one, besides the great sound and rhythm to absorb. While it’s satisfying to read them on the page, they are conceived for performance, and Connor has performed many of them. Four of his poems have been anthologized in Gabriel’s Horn Press.
The main thread of the narrative is Connor’s profound Catholic faith and his devotion to his parents, whose 51-year loving marriage inspires him to seek the same kind of union, based on a common faith. Many of his poems contemplate that quest.
Underlying the entire story is Mark’s bonded relationship with his father and the gut punch he suffered at his father’s sudden death, in 2019.
This book is for someone who is grieving a beloved parent, who loves poetry, who follows boxing, who wants to reflect on the meaning of marriage, who loves the Catholic religion with all of its saints, relics, rituals, symbols and internal rigor, who respects the struggle for justice in many cultures, or who enjoys reading the adventures of an aspiring writer (from fishing in Alaska to meeting Ferlinghetti, to protecting Franklin Avenue and Little Earth during the nights after George Floyd’s murder).
“It’s About Time” received the Bloomsday Literary Award this year on June 16, the day the Irish network in Minnesota celebrates James Joyce.
To get the book in person, go to Irish on Grand in St. Paul. Online, it’s available on Amazon, Lulu and Barnes & Noble. Connor’s website is: boxersandwritersmagazine.com.
Elaine Klaassen started selling ads at Southside Pride in June of 1996. She then enrolled in a class at United Theological Seminary in fall, which led to selling ads primarily to churches, religion-based schools and other institutions, and which was the springboard for what became her column called Spirit and Conscience. Eventually she became the managing editor of Southside Pride. Health concerns initiated her exit from the newspaper in June of 2021.
