Books

  • Books:
  • Carnivorous
  • Blood Horses,
  • Beneath The Ice,
  • Snakeskin Stilettos,
  • The Horse's Nest,
  • Miracle Fruit,
  • Selected Poems,
  • The Goose Tree

About Me

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Poet, creative writing facilitator, editor. Experienced mentor for those working towards a first collection. My publishers are Lagan Press, Belfast and Liberties Press, Dublin, who published my Selected Poems in 2012, The Goose Tree in June 2014. Blood Horses was published in 2018 from Caesura Press www.caesurapress.co.uk and a new collection, Carnivorous was published from Doire Press Spring 2019 www.doirepress.com Awarded an Arts Council of NI Major Artist Award in 2019

Thursday 12 April 2012

Cincinnati Review

I'm really pleased to have a couple of poems included in the next edition of the Cincinnati Review (9.1).
They have asked for an 'author commentary' - a brief comment on the inspiration behind the poems. Never been asked for this before! Here's my attempt at it ...


A few years ago, a friend gave me a beautiful Thai stone Buddha for my birthday. Straight backed and elegant, he sits on a railing outside my kitchen window where I can see him every time I glance outside. The Buddha wears all weathers with equal equanimity, a cape and cap of snow in the winter; unblinking in the summer sun. Crows regularly perch on his head. I came to think of him as ‘the patience of stone’, and around that phrase, my poem Rock gathered and grew.

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