John Quinn (1)

My biggest problem with this was it wasn't long enough. I kept wanting to turn to someone and share this with them, particularly my father, if he hasn't already read this, I think he would love these short snippets of excellence. It's a short book with short, almost letter's page of a newspaper length thoughts (in fact a few of them are letters to the Irish Times), most no longer than a page a few spilling onto the next page, they're about everything, from his wife's tragic death to the Queen's visit (a poem that glistened with tears from me and had a catch in my throat), to childhood memories and thoughts of sacred space. The pieces are deceptive, like his friend John O'Donohue, he lulls you into a sense that he's not complex and then makes a momet alive with a few choice words.

My favourites were "Excuse me, Ma'am" about the Queen's first visit to Ireland, and "Elsewhere" about that moment where you need to find a special place and just be, or that's what I read into it anyway.

He writes prose poetry, you could get a mile of meaning from each word. I am only sorry for three things in this, that some of the formatting makes reading them a little difficult; that this man is no longer on this earth and that it took me till now to read some of his work.… (mehr)