Mary Guckian grew up on a farm in Leitrim, but has been enjoying life in Ringsend for a number of years.

Q. How and when did you first develop an interest in poetry?
I grew up on a small farm in Co Leitrim. It was the 1940s, a bleak time. We had no books in the house but once a week we received two papers, the ‘Leitrim Observer’ and the ‘Sunday Press’. I used to read them cover to cover. I was always looking for something to read. I had no access to libraries. I do remember that the ‘Leitrim Observer’ used to publish a poet, Liam Sceallain, who wrote about nature, trees, and politics. As a girl, I cut out all of his works and pasted them into my old scrapbook. I still have them.

It wasn’t until I was 17 and got a job in Sligo County Council that a librarian friend of mine there began to recommend books for me to read. I remember reading Canon Sheehan, Kickham’s ‘Knocknagow’, and Werfel’s ‘The Song of Bernadette’. I was always writing myself then, mostly diaries. Apart from schoolbooks, I wasn’t reading much poetry yet, though I would have been given Yeats’s poetry. I remember John McGahern’s ‘The Barracks’, which I could identify with a lot.

Q. Do you remember the first poem you had published?
Yes, I had moved to Oxford and got a job temping for a Greek lecturer in Christchurch College. (Temps there were on a par with the gardeners and the maids who did the beds.) I wrote a poem, ‘Frosty Morning’, which was published in a collection called ‘Tears on the Fence’.

Q. Who, if anyone, has influenced your work?
When I moved back to Ireland, I had also been to Australia. I got involved with the Rathmines Writers Group. I think my first contact was meeting Eithne Kavanagh at a reading in the Peppercanister Church. The late Warren O’Connell was in that group. He died last May, at 84. He was a lovely man and his father taught in Ringsend Institute.

I liked to read women poets, but at that time, it was hard to find a book of poetry by women poets. It was before Salmon Publishing and Beaver Row Press began publishing women writers, but I did find and read Eavan Boland’s poetry. Also, I met the poet Mary O’Donnell.

Another writer who was very helpful to me was Rosemary Rowley. Her parents were from Leitrim, and she was so passionate, articulate, and full of poetry, she has inspired me and been a true friend.

I read poetry all the time. I read everybody. I particularly like women poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver, and at home, Anne Hartigan, Mary O’Donnell, Eileen Casey and Mary Melvin Geoghegan, from Longford.

Q. What is your work about, generally speaking?
Many of my poems are about nature and my relationship with it and the world. I also love photography as an art form and love to put together my poems and photographs. I like graffiti, and I once wrote a poem in praise of it. Graffiti artists are a kind of outsider art.

Q. Could you tell us something about your awards and publications?
In 2003, I won the ‘Leitrim Guardian’ Literary Award for poems published in this annual journal. I also received an award from Scottish Open International Poetry Competition for a long poem.

I have published two books of poetry, ‘Perfume of the Soil’, 1999 and ‘The Road to Gowel’, 2000, which was inspired by our weekly walk to Mass. My poems have been included in English and Irish anthologies, as well as Australia, India, Canada, and the USA.

Rosemary Rowley helped set up the Swan Press, which published my first book, and this was bought by lots of libraries and got five or six reviews, including a review in ‘Poetry Ireland’. For a poet who did not go through the usual channels, this was a lot of reviews. My poem ‘Walking on Snow’ was published in Michael Flanagan’s broadsheet, ‘Riposte’, and was voted the ‘most popular poem of 2008’ in a readers’ poll. I also have a short story in the newly-published anthology from the Rathmines Writers Group, ‘Encounters’, which is in bookshops now.

Q. Do you read your work in public?
I have read my work at various venues over the past few years. In December 2001, I was one part of an exchange with a group called Optimal Avenues, and read at seven venues in and around Boston.

Q. What would your style of work be like– do you write every day, or just when you feel inspired, for instance?
I am not a bit disciplined. I am always making notes for poems. I start loads of poems, but the problem is giving myself time to work on them. I am a terrible free spirit. Just 18 months ago I retired after 21 years in the Institute of Public Administration. It is fantastic not to be rushing out in the morning. I thought I would write loads, but there has been a lot to do, and I am still adjusting to the changes. But I do have enough poems together for my next collection, ‘Walking on Snow’.

Q. Do you have any advice for poets starting out?
Yes– read and read and read, get a real feel for language. If you are isolated, it is good to join a group, find people you can talk to about your work and get feedback. Get to know fellow poets and soulmates. Go to readings- Poetry Ireland is great for organising them throughout the year. Get over rejection slips, and never lose heart.

I would also like to add that I really enjoy living here in Ringsend, and find it a place that also inspires my poetry.

Two of Mary’s poems can be found on the poetry page in this issue.