Feature essay in the October 2023 issue, extract below:

“A lot of poets in interviews make note of certain elements of writing that they find difficult. I do think there is strength to this vulnerability, in admitting that it is not always a divine channelling of inspiration from mysterious sublime sources, but a process that can be trying in parts. The part I find difficult most often is starting poems, or rather finding a way in. It is as if the inspiration, the sense, the feeling and conversation is already in existence, and I’m trying to reach in to shape it, or capture even a small part. Sort of like a lightning rod if that itself isn’t too mystical an image. Due to this, I sensed that finding a way into writing a pamphlet might be similarly trying. Then came what I like to call ‘the green poems’, my saviours. Three ekphrastic prose poems Fern, Olive and Sea which respond to ‘green’ instances in artwork, and specific green tones distinguished by universal hexadecimal codes. These poems form the central essence of the pamphlet, led by The Good Kind of Green, which itself was a response to Federico García Lorca’s Romance Sonámbulo, written for the love of green. Once these poems were written I knew something definite had started to take shape.”

Honest Ulsterman is generously supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Annual Funding Programme.