My first collection of poetry was published in November
2010. But on Good Friday 2011 I was diagnosed with cancer. From my hospital bed
in Belfast I was forced to cancel all the dates of my reading tour of Ireland
and England. After I left hospital I didn’t write any poetry for several years.
But I was writing regularly, in the form of this blog which focused on my
condition and treatment. Around five years ago I did begin to write poetry again.
And despite the cancer recurrences and the series of major operations, I’ve
kept this up. Understandably, the tone and style of my poetry has changed. Although,
the one area of experience I’ve not chosen to write poetry about is cancer.
Over the past eight years, the poetry publishing
scene has changed significantly. Lagan Press, the publisher of my first
collection, do not publish single-author poetry collections anymore, so I have
needed to find a new home for my work. Unwisely, I submitted an early draft of
my second collection to several publishers. This was premature and they did not
choose to take it. The content, shape and tone of the collection has changed
significantly since then. I am much more confident of my collection now,
particularly given the extremely positive feedback I received from the judges
of the Overton Poetry Prize.
Judges’ Report
‘Very accomplished writing throughout, with
lots of stories and characters. All the poems were strong, but there were
some poems, and individual lines or stanzas that we felt stood out: in Hermit,
for example, the final stanza is brilliant – ‘The whin creaks, / my furrows
are bare, / let thistles come.’– while ‘our times are as hard as the frost’ seems absolutely the right voice for the
lapper. Despite the dark and difficult subject matter of some of the
poems, the level of detail and choice of imagery makes the collection
compelling.’
