Oliver Marshall is a long-time Dublin-based poet who was born in 1948 in Clonmel. In 1966 he graduated from UCD, where he achieved a BA and MA in English and American Literature. He became a qualified librarian, and worked for 20 years as librarian in the Department of Education, from which he took early retirement in 1994.

His first book, Father’s Day, was published in 2005 by Summer Palace Press in Donegal, and has received deservedly excellent reviews. Lorcan Byrne in the Bray Arts Journal called Marshall’s work ‘unflinchingly honest’.

While the poems touch on bereavement, suffering, loneliness, and loss, there is no despair, no self-pity, but ‘a stoic strength and a recognition that love is the balm for any wound that time might inflict’. Gywn Parry finds in this book an Ireland that is fast disappearing or maybe already gone– a rural childhood populated by ‘people and places that seem extraordinary to us now’. Michael Coady praises the book highly, saying that ‘this is work which shows you why we need poetry for sustenance’.

What poets have you enjoyed reading?
I read widely in poetry– Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin, Thomas Hardy, Yeats, of course. But poetry at one time was the last thing I thought I would write. Earlier, I got encouragement from my older brother, who got me reading Frank O’Connor, Mary Lavin, and Edna O’Brien, among others.

What got you started as a writer?
I didn’t actually start writing until 1978, when my eldest daughter was born. I was present at her birth, and somehow this jolted me into writing as a form of self expression. I was living in Rathmines, and writing just began to pour out of me. My writing came out of issues related to my childhood and feelings.

In 1980–81, I wrote three radio plays which were put on RTE: ‘Fantasia in the Dark’, ‘Happy Ever After’, and ‘Remains’. I felt as John B Keane said, that ‘writing is something that happens to you’. I personally have gone through cycles of creativity and depression. I still feel I am struggling to be a writer and to accept it– for me, writing is a gift.

When did you start writing poetry?
That actually came later. I began to write poetry in 1984., publishing poems in New Irish Writing, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Wales, and other periodicals. My first book, ‘Father’s Day’, came mainly out of my experiences of being a father and a son.

My favourite poem in your first collection is ‘Uncles’. It is so moving. How did you come to write this?
While I wrote this poem many years later, it was based on a tragedy that happened when I was three years old, and affected my childhood. My uncles, my father’s two brothers, drowned tragically on a post office outing to Clonea on Aug 5, 1951. My father tried unsuccessfully to save them.

Sunday after Sunday until I was twelve
I wiped the birdshit from your gravestone,
Or knelt bare-kneed beside my father,
Uncertain whether to pray to you or for you;
Guilty that in secret I was glad
You, not he, were dead
And now I no longer pray. But I can hold
you here undrowned forever, hands
lifted in my father’s hands, above the waves.

Have you read or performed your poetry in public?
Yes, quite a few times, in the Irish Writers’ Centre, the Oscar Wilde Autumn School in Bray, and the Bray Arts Club. I am also a member of a group called the Wildeside Quartet, which has performed at various venues in Wales, for instance.

Any advice for budding writers?
Writing can be cathartic and quite difficult– it may bring out emotions and issues you have not dealt well with in life. I would say write what you know, and don’t be afraid of strong emotions. You also have to have some form– it is the way the writer communicates to the reader. I also believe that if the writing is good enough, and the writer really believes in it, it will get published.

Do you have any future projects?
I have a second collection ready for publication. Also, I would love to write for theatre in future.

Thanks for your time, and good luck.