The Compulsion to Compose

I have had the compulsion to compose since I first started writing at the age of 12. This compulsion comes from a wish to create, to leave something tangible in the world, to connect in the first instance with myself and then with the world outside. It enabled me to express myself on paper during the dark days of my teenage-hood when I found it impossible to do so verbally. It saved me.

When, in the late 1980s, I emigrated to Spain my ability to compose gradually dried up. Living and working in a non-English speaking environment while acquiring a new language mitigated against it I suppose. To make up for the inability to write new poems in English I began to translate some of my existing poems into Spanish, and even penned a couple of originals in that language. After little over a year, however, I ceased to write altogether.

This state of affairs continued long after I had returned from Spain to live in Ireland. In fact my writing drought lasted all of sixteen years, being finally broken in mysterious dream-inspired fashion that brought forth the poem “Resurrection” almost fully-formed.