About Me
I'm a writer and editor from Sligo, northwest Ireland, and based in
Galway, a rain-drenched town of creativity and students on the rocky west
coast. I mainly write poetry, fiction and songs, though I also dabble in
plays, non-fiction and articles. My interest in writing began over 20
years ago, studying the Leaving Cert English course in Summerhill
College, Sligo, reading Shakespeare's plays, studying poets such as
Yeats, Kavanagh, TS Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson and others.
The subjects I find myself returning to most often are nature,
sport, creativity, mortality/death, growing older, people/characters and
society as a whole.
My first book of poetry, Evidence of Freewheeling, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2015 (available here), while my second collection, Breeding Monsters, was published in 2018 (available here on paperback and Kindle).
In 2009, I completed the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. My poems and short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies in Ireland, England, Scotland, Austria, India, the US and Mexico. Five of my poems were translated into Spanish for the Mexican journals Cuadrivio and Periodico de Poesia. I also contributed to the Artistic Atlas of Galway project, which mapped the city and county of Galway using poems, stories and art.
If you're interested in getting feedback on your poem, story, novel, memoir or other work, please email me here with details.
Awards
Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital & Research Foundation Poetry Competition
Most recently, in 2020, I was awarded second place in the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital & Research Foundation Poetry Competition. The poem chosen was "Marrow", the first poem in my second collection, Breeding Monsters (see further down the page for more details on the book).
Marrow
A bone spoke to me this morning,
one of my ribs.
“Some day, you’ll be dead,” it said,
“nothing left of your flesh,
just rags of skull and brittle sticks.”
I rubbed my finger slowly over
its subterranean mountain range,
sure I couldn’t have heard it,
but it spoke again –
at parks and junctions, the rusted railings of an old warehouse.
Leaning on a gate before a field,
I pictured my flesh dropping to a pool,
trickling down a country road.
Tell me, body, what would you do
if your bones deserted you?
I’ve always imagined my ribs
wrapped round my organs like the wings of a wounded bird,
as if our bodies began with imperfection.
In bed, I hear my collarbone whisper,
its two halves fused with a knot of mutant bone.
“You’re fragile,” it says. But I always knew
that bones are vulgar footnotes to death.
I tell that mangled twig:
“I broke you once on a football pitch.
I never felt more alive.”
Leitrim Guardian Poetry Competition
In 2018, I was awarded first prize in the Leitrim Guardian Poetry Competition, for my poem "April", about the death of my nine-year-old uncle, whom I never met, and its effect on my mother. The poem is given below, and it's included in my first poetry collection, Evidence of Freewheeling, published by Salmon Poetry in 2015 (see further down the page for more details on the book).
April
In memory of Pearse Devins
(1958-1967)
February crawls.
March stands up.
April moves at a jog.
I hardly remember the white breath of winter,
Waking each day as vigorous as a river.
There’s always been a sadness in my mother,
This time of year,
Days like these
Seen through wistful eyes.
I never realised why
Till now:
It was a day like this
Pearse died.
I’ve seen his face in pictures,
The uneven sweep of his curls,
The charming grin
Of a nine-year-old boy.
The football rolled
Across the road.
He followed.
Mum became the youngest child.
She never let us play out the front,
Said it was for the flowers.
But I knew what blooms she sought to protect.
By curling balls and bending legs on sunny days,
We brothers fought and loved.
Flat balls still litter the edge,
Orange bladders like open wounds.
Pearse would be a man now,
Too old for games,
His curls withered,
Chin stubbled,
Driving to Ballyshannon.
Mum sometimes kicks the ball.
She smiles, though her chin hangs low.
When I kick the ball in April,
It goes faster than any car.
Breeding Monsters
In 2018, I decided to self-publish my second poetry collection, Breeding Monsters. I set up a crowdfunding page to get the funds required to produce, distribute and launch the collection. The book is based around the idea of fear, reaching deep into the recesses of the human mind. It tackles uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, revealing how fear can act as a motivator, as inspiration. It examines a writer’s fear, a father’s fear, the anxiety of a woman jogging alone on a dark street and other subjects. It's available here from Amazon in paperback (5 pounds/6.50 dollars/euros) and Kindle (3 pounds/4.50 dollars/euros).
Sample poems
Play Razor and Sink
I could never escape goalposts: To choose the cheek
between the pillars of brick walls, or the sloping chin:
the shadows of bridges built for trains, this face is a hackneyed land.
the wooden frames of a house-in-progress.
I dread the jaw, its blind turn,
Like a dog distracted, the ridge that rises below the nose.
I wandered off, became Marco van Basten, A tilted head shows fear to the world.
eyeing a long ball, assessing my angle.
I was Cantona once, my school collar turned up. Dip and tap – floating rafts
of fuzzy, clotted hair
Freed by the confines of tar and lines, arrive at lathered islands.
I’d sweat at the sight of a metal frame
designed to keep caravans from car parks. Each clean stroke is a massacre,
One time, I was tackled by a puddle. curt and precise
or wide as an autumn harvest.
Now, I’m a danger as I drive through towns,
where pitches flaunt their green allure Slick skin is a curious thing.
and Gaelic posts, thin as stalagmites, A thin thread of red about the neck,
wobble high over grey walls. and I await the sting.
A ragged web shivers by my window, I could be a bearded man,
as though a ball had burst the net. but then, I wouldn’t feel my face
At the desk, I play, someone else for a while. rinsed of its errant ways.
The book closes: I’m me again.
The world reverberates to the song of tapped sinks.
Buy Breeding Monsters here
Evidence of Freewheeling
In November 2015, my first collection of poems was published by Salmon Poetry, called Evidence of Freewheeling. It's a collection of poems on various subjects (including sport, nature, language, creativity/writing, death and more). I really believe in the value of variety in writing, rather than relentlessly pursuing one style or subject, so I tried to make each poem very different from all the others. If you're interested in checking it out, the book is available here.
(Cover image taken in Berlin by my brother, Steven Pearse Conway)
Videos
Some Publications Featuring My Work
Poetry
Over the Edge - The First Ten Years: An Anthology of Fiction & Poetry (Ireland)
Poetry Salzburg Review (Austria)
Ink, Sweat and Tears (UK)
Cuadrivio (Mexico)
Periodico de Poesia (Mexico)
FUSION (USA)
Leopardskin & Limes (Germany)
Eunoia Review (Singapore)
Nine Muses Poetry (Wales)
The Artistic Atlas of Galway (Ireland)
HeadStuff (Ireland)
Inclement (England)
A New Ulster (Ireland)
The Galway Review (Ireland)
Decanto (England)
Read This (Scotland)
Sixteen Magazine (Ireland)
Gravel (USA)
The Lake (UK)
Poetry NI (Ireland)
HCE Review (Ireland)
Skylight 47 (Ireland)
The Pedestal Magazine (USA)
Boyne Berries (Ireland)
Measured Words (Ireland)
The Sharp Review (Ireland)
Poetic Expressions (England)
Live Encounters (Ireland)
The Gown (Ireland)
Fiction
Flash (England)
The Literary Yard (India)
Wilderness House Literary Review (USA)
Squawk Back (USA)
Weber: The Contemporary West (USA)
Crannog (Ireland)
Poetry & Fiction
ROPES 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 (Ireland)
Bicycles With Umbrellas (Ireland)
