Introduction

Some time ago a few friends and I were fantasizing about life in a completely different role. One person wanted to run his own petrol station; another wanted to be a detective. A third opted to become president of the United states, while a fourth decided he would like to be Secretary - General of the United Nations, to keep his eye on his power hungry colleague.

As for myself, I said I would like to be a poet. Don't ask me why; at times I become aware of experiences that register on my mind, like frames in a movie. They seem to call for interpretation and recording as fragments of poetry. I first experienced this feeling late in 1987 while listening to Barry McGovern reading the poetry of Wilfrid Owen on a radio program. This was about the time of the Enniskillen tragedy. Wilfrid Owen's ability to share his experience of the Great War prompted me to express my feelings about the futile waste of life in Enniskillen in my first poem.

One way we can demonstrate the uniqueness of our experiences is to share them. Poetry can do this very well. I have discovered this reading Patrick Kavanagh and Francis Ledwidge, Brendan Kennelly and Desmond Egan. Eavan Boland and Michael Hartnett, Seamus Heaney and Derry O'Sullivan and the many fine poets , whose frozen feelings lie on the shelves of bookshops and libraries, waiting to melt into the consciousness of the inquiring reader.

When a poem has a meaning for a person it can become a unique experience in their life; as the person reads the poem, the poem reads the person. I have published seven slim volumes of poetry. I hope that somewhere in those books one of my poems has a meaning for someone, perhaps for you.