I first encountered John O’Donohue when I purchased his book Anam Cara, which is Gaelic for ‘soul friend’. I’m a sucker for anything seeming to hark back to my ancestral past.
Described as a ‘poetic priest with the soul of a pagan,’ he certainly had a way with words, and I made a note to check out some of his other books.
And of course, I forgot.
Then tonight I came across this reminder, an excerpt from his book Eternal Echoes, and made my second note. I’ll act on it this time.
Probably.
from my poetry blog
from my poetry blog
For me, my poems serve as a diary. When I look at them I can remember where I was when I got the idea for each one, and what it was that acted as the initial inspiration. The opening poem in my book, Heading North, is called Midnight, July.
The title indicates the when, but not the where and why.
The words for this one came when I was sat in the back garden with a coffee. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and I was looking up at the stars and wondering whether we could be alone or was there life somewhere out there?
We writhe with a rage to know the unknowable, blind to great masses that dance in dark orbits. And a soft, summer wind on a night beneath stars is no balm.
While I was sat there, neck craned in the quiet of the…
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Above the house, the swifts are screaming.
Can you hear them, Clarice?
We are bogged down by time and heat and lethargy.
I’m thinking of an old poem of mine, Dog Days, written under the sledgehammer of a July, noon-day sun:
who can deny /the sapping sun/at its highest point /lording over /our genuflecting /straw gods
We are all genuflecting, lowering our weary, supine brows. It’s been a hell of a long summer, and we’ve not yet reached July. Who could have foreseen this, who prepared? Not we little men, we average Joes and Josephines.
Not tonight, you-know-who.
Tomorrow is more of the same, that has been foreseen, but nothing lasts forever, nothing lasts at all, and storms are due to hit the day after that.
And then we batten down. Straw Gods and rush men.
Children of the corn. Drinking in the rain.
from my poetry blog.
It was a year ago today that In Brigantia got its first cover reveal.
Following on from my first collection, Heading North, I’m quite proud of it, and thank those who have already bought it.
For anyone else who’d like a copy, it’s available here:
from my poetry blog
This period of lockdown has given me an opportunity to have a clear out, and going through old cupboards I’ve discovered scraps of paper with old lines and verses scribbled on, words either rejected at the time or forgotten. I’ve decided to share them here for posterity. Some are years old and fragmentary, some are more developed, though still rough drafts.
from my poetry blog
