UL lecturer champions marginalised voices in his debut poetry release

EOIN Devereux, a lecturer at UL, is releasing his first poetry collection, giving voice to the marginalised and exploring themes of homelessness, and working-class life.

Gardening Leave which features a mixture of new and previously published poetry will be available to buy from Monday, November 3.

Speaking about his first collection of poetry, Mr Devereux said: “I have been writing and publishing poetry since I returned to creative writing in 2012. It's a collection of previously published and new unpublished poetry and the book is organised around a number of key themes. It examines family history, it looks a lot at my working class upbringing and my growing awareness of issues concerning social justice.”

The Kennedy Park native added that the poems attempt to give a voice to people who are often ignored or written off. He explores homelessness and our relationship with nature and gardening.

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“Many of the poems are quite political in terms of the state of the world so it's quite a mixture of things from hidden family history to my own upbringing, my kind of growing awareness of the world, to our relationship with nature, to the bigger issues about the state of society and the world.”

Discussing the theme of homelessness, Mr Devereux said: “In the book there are quite a number of poems written from the perspective of people who are homeless and that's a major theme in the book.”

“It's about humanising people who are homeless... people who are homeless have the very same sets of feelings and experiences that many human beings have and it's about kind of recognising that and humanising people and I think a poem is one way in which you can begin that kind of conversation.”

Mr Devereux’s dual identity as academic and artist has been mutually enriching rather than conflicting. A Professor of Cultural Sociology at UL, he leads the Creative Writers in The Community modules on the university’s Master’s in Creative Writing.

He explained: “When I went back to creative writing I was really worried about being taken seriously as a creative writer... I almost had to unlearn how I wrote as an academic to write in a creative writing way.”

Mr Devereux continued: “What I have actually found over time is being a creative writer has really helped my academic writing and my teaching, so being a creative writer has encouraged me to become more adventurous and to take risks with my writing.”

The collection will be launched at O'Mahony's in Limerick city on November 6 at 6.30pm by acclaimed novelists Donal Ryan and Sarah Moore Fitzgerald.