The magic to be found in a box of books: a column by Link Poetry Correspondent Maurice Spillane

When children of close friends were heading to university back in the day, I put together a box of books.

The mix was different as each young adult had new alignments. A personal note explained the choice; some books at hand and the search for the not-so-obvious throughbookfinder.com; post-it notes on pages as coloured decorations.

I envisaged a shelf in their room, a living ornament, an opportunity to reach up, take a moment of reflection in a poem, a short story, a favourite chapter. Nothing was prescribed;they could nurture their own escape.

Then – surprise - I received my own box of books from Midge, the widow of an Irishman, Cathal McCormack, who’d lived in Swindon for decades and recently died. He’d an eclectic collection but the box I received was a coterie of old Irish writers: O’Connor, O’Flaherty, Synge, Yeats, O’Casey, O’Brien and so on, some unknown outside Ireland.

They are relevant as I’ve been studying the period of those writers for a piece of work. Cathal contributed several I’d missed.

What a shame that we never met, never knew we both existed in little Swindon. I know we’d have got on, enjoyed our reverie through Irish literature, outdone each other with stories, become good friends. I name him in this poem, A Box of Books:

 

I met a man I’ve never known

nor never now can meet

beneath the folds of a brown box.

 

Two emigrants in Swindon town,

common heritage, common tongue,

a solid link to a love of books of

 

Irish authors I know in words

and some I’ve met along the road,

a deeper link than normally seen. 

 

We’ve common friends, and yet,

this poem is testimony to a gap that will

not now close: the should’ve-been.

 

www.mauricespillane.co.uk

Pulpit Pub Open Mic, Wednesday 25 November 7:30pm.