Meanderings Poetry Collection

Meanderings is a body of poetry written as a response to everyday life, which soon began to incorporate the changing seasons around me. They were written during a period of rapid change and discovery. The poems in Meanderings are at once personal and universal, internal and external. They are ‘of the moment’.

Since the age of six I have been writing in response to present-moment experience. Hundreds of poems scatter across diaries and scraps of torn paper. They document the world around me, a world of in-betweens - between the city and the Irish wilderness, comfort and confusion, joy and pain. My poems are, and have always been, a means of making sense of the world.

They are a means of finding light in the dark, sun in night, constancy in chaos.

Meanderings is split into four sections titled ‘Dawn’, ‘Day’, ‘Dusk’ and ‘Night’, which links them to seasons of ‘self’ and land. In this way they are circular, reflecting the reader and re-making themselves with every fresh pair of eyes.

The mono print illustrations were created in September 2022 - January 2023 as ‘visual metaphors’ to complement the poems.

Here is the preface to Meanderings, written in November 2022:

Meanderings is a poetry anthology grounded in the universe. Yes, those two things may contradict a little but isn’t that often so? Oftentimes the shakiest ground is the most solid, and there is wonder and mystery in an empty coffee cup. Let me explain.

The poems in Meanderings explore change and continuity, seasons (both inner and outer), and the connection between people, plants, and creatures. Further, they explore the idea of ‘inbetweens’ - the pause at the end of the exhale, the air between our bottoms and the sofa, and the spaces beyond form. I am interested in time and what happens when it slows to a stop. I am interested in where this concept of ‘time’ is taking us, and whether it is possible to be fully ‘here, now’ with the concept of time forever buzzing about in our cell phones and minds.

Further, my poems explore the idea of flow - life is a stream rippling on unobstructed, killing and birthing the days and months and always moving, forwards and back.

There is continuity in the chaos, a straight line in the scribble, and a soul inside each of us unexposed.

It’s a being that watches without attachment, and a root that holds us to the earth. It pieces us all together in perfect loveliness, and brings us home to the moment.

The butterfly effect is the idea that everything we do - every action we speak or word we utter - can make an impact. It is a concept informing much of the poetry in this book. The butterfly effect describes the intimate and vague connection between words, deeds, thoughts and grand scale, earthly problems. This is the cosmic dance - and we have no choice but to groove with it.

To make a good mark, we must watch how we flutter. The play of life is written in our wings.

I hope you will enjoy the poems and musings in this ‘Dawn’ collection. I have described them as ‘a journey of being and becoming’ for they carry themes of stillness, starting, searching, and finding.

They are like the first ray of light that hits the sand before sunrise - hazy and expectant. I hope they will call you home in moments of waiting and wondering.

For ease of reading I have created four books in this series - Dawn, Day, Dusk, Night. The poems rise and ripen, ebb and fall to the rhythm of life itself. Feel free to select the one that fits you best right now. But remember that this moment too shall pass, and the next one might require a different medicine. In this way the books are circular - reflecting the reader and creating new meaning with every fresh pair of eyes.

Thank you, dear creature, for picking up this book. I hope the words are like a balm. Keep them close and sniff the flowers. I promise we won’t be here for long…

If you are interested in hearing more about this work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

A SOFT LANDING 

I sigh softly with the earth

her heartbeat in my centre 

and when all is lost and broken she gives me 

yet another in-breath! 

Lights the skies in colours of love  

and I can’t turn her away. 

Oh what is life but a long exhale?

A wholesome return

to the root of it all.

I CAN’T GROW A POEM 

I can’t grow a poem – 

I can only pick it up, 

blindly 

from the ground or from the ether, 

writing off the heaviness that hangs about the heart.

SUPPORTED 

Sometimes all you have to do is feel  

into the energy of a space  

and know that it is like a soft cushion.  

Life is a cushion to lie on. 
 

You are supported by this lovely cushion  

even when you feel it the least.
 

The pillow is within.