Poet launches collection about ‘chasing the exotic’
AFTER travelling home from Saudi Arabia, John Griffin has launched his first full poetry collection, Erosions.
The launch of the collection took place at the Tipperary Library in the Excel Arts Centre on February 3.
Published by Salmon Poetry, Erosions is a collection about “nature, both violent and calm,” as well as about “exile, chasing the exotic, confronting illness and death,” and “searching for identity.”
Since his early twenties, John has been writing, and published two chapbooks in the United States - After Love (Pen and Anvil) and Absences: A sequence (The Esthetic Apostle).
In Erosions, the writer refers to his childhood in Tipperary town.
In one of the sequences, he recalls a determining moment - a “sudden death in a car accident” of one of their “boyhood friends” which marked both the loss of his innocence, but also the start of his writing life.
At the launch, John was introduced by his sister, Eleanor Hooker, who described his writing as erudite, learned, but always accessible.
“A leitmotif throughout the collection is the plight of the émigré and what separation and absences entail,” she added.
At the close of the launch event, John thanked both Jessie Lendennie and Siobhan Hutson at Salmon Poetry for producing “such a beautiful book,” and he also thanked librarians Catherine Fogarty and Majella Hickey for “so generously hosting the launch event.”