Reynolds launches new poetry book ‘That’s Life’

Patricia Reynolds with her new poetry book ‘That’s Life’

Haggardstown drama teacher Patricia Reynolds launched her new poetry book ‘That’s Life’ last Saturday in Jackie’s Restaurant on the Dublin Road to a packed audience of family and friends.

Local historian and poet Noel Sharkey launched the event by giving the audience a brief overview of a selection of poems from ‘That’s Life’.

Past members of the Reynolds Academy of Performing Arts (RAPA), Patricia’s stage performance school, supported Patricia by reading her poems and the launch concluded with Patricia reading her final poem ‘That’s Life’ which closes her journey and moves forward with joy, happiness and excitement.

At the launch event Patricia said: “The poems cover different situations and emotions which reflect real life and are a combination of my own life’s living and the experiences of people I have met along the way.

“Often, I see or feel intensely about a scene, a happening, or a story I have heard and I write a poem about it. There is a lot of imagery in my poetry and hopefully when people read the poems, they will be able to sense a picture for themselves.”

That’s Life consists of 24 poems ranging from anorexia, love, suicide, both from the victim’s view point and also from the family left behind. There is joy, blame, birth and death culminating in a new beginning and excitement racing onward and toward a new life.  The message at the front of the book reads, ‘Everyone who has lived comes with baggage. The trick is in learning how to unpack!

That’s Life is Patricia’s fifth book to date. Her first two books Showcase 1 &  2 are plays for children written specifically for the classroom with up to 15 to 30 parts for players from 4-17 yrs of age and is available via www.dramabooks.ie  Her third and fourth book  ‘Trish the Witch’ Book 1 & 2 is aimed at children aged 6 to 10 yrs.

That’s Life is a beautiful poetry book and is available for purchase at a cost of €10 at Carroll’s Bookshop, Longwalk Shopping Centre, Dundalk and Carroll’s Books, Park Street, Dundalk. Alternatively you can purchase online via www.rapadrama.com or email Patricia directly at info@rapadrama.com

Positively Hill Street

Damian Moran Motors and Hill Street Tyres were two of the places mentioned in Noel’s poem about Hill Street

Thanks to Harry Lee for sharing this poem by Blackrock man Noel Sharkey about Hill Street in Dundalk.

Nineteenth Century houses; with walls that are
Durable and thick –
And roofs that are Bangor-Blue slated.
One and two storied structures of un-faded
Red brick –
And, an ambiance of permanency created

(Where this Dublin road is market-wide)
By these blackened chimney pots
That overlooks both the Gosling’s Terrace
And the Hughes’s Park side –
And the back yards, allotments and plots

Where played generations of young
Mullhollands, Goslings and Byrnes,
And Grimes’s, Heartys, Myres’s and Lees,
And such families who have lived here in
Their turns,
And who have relocated and left here by degrees,

Or who remained, and set down permanent roots –
While the mothers kept the houses and cooked,
And brought their children to and from schools;
Their men brewed; built railway carriages –
Manufactured shoes and boots –
Served their time; were skilled with tools.

Pedestrians are still to’ing and fro’ing; going
And coming
To Byrne’s pub or to Charlie’s Take Away –
In Hill Street Tyres; Moran’s Garage; Car
Engines are humming,
At every hour of every day,

People shuffle, saunter, hurry; walk,
At eight and twelve and six o’clock –
Constant buses, cars, bicycles, feet,
Place their threaded rubber upon this
Venerable Dundalk Street.