Shaemas O'Sheel was an Irish American

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...

 poet and critic. Born James Shields, he changed his name to an anglicized spelling of its Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 version soon after high school. He worked briefly for the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 (1913-1916), held jobs with various newspapers, and did publicity and advertising work. Although third-generation Irish American and never visiting Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, he was active in the Irish independence

Irish independence

Irish independence may refer to:* Irish War of Independence – a guerrilla war fought between the Irish Republican Army, under the Irish Republic, and the United Kingdom* Anglo-Irish Treaty – the treaty that brought the Irish War of Independence to a close...

 movement. He was, in his own words, "a very ardent communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 and a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

" . However, because he disagreed with Soviet foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

, many communist publications (such as New Masses) refused to publish his work.

As a member of the League of American Writers

League of American Writers

The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...

, O'Sheel served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact.

Publications

O'Sheel's published poetry collections include The Blossomy Bough (1912) and The Light Feet of Goats (1915). Louis Untermeyer

Louis Untermeyer

Louis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.-Life and career:...

 characterized O'Sheel's poetry as possessing "mysticism and a muffled heroism". O'Sheel's work also appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, Harper's, and other national publications.