Throughout your adult years as an educator, you’ve encountered on their first school day, children teetering nervously at the edge of the classroom. With bags almost empty and old clothes handed down to them, their newly starched shirts awkwardly wrapped around their thin shoulders. As time wears on, these same children you happened upon, changed and reshaped, seemingly omnipresent: at the café, in the supermarket line, on a city corner, strolling with their dog, manoeuvring a pushchair, idly waiting for the traffics signals to shift.
Then, during a late night journey home, you arrive at a police checkpoint where an unfortunate fatality has just occurred. The flashing blue lights casting an eerily slow, submerged ambiance over the scene. You lower your car window and, reflected in the gaze looking back at you, you catch glimpse of your astonished expression mirrored in the brief wavering uncertainty. In those moments, you long to give reassurance, but are prohibited by the constraints of adulthood. Unable to utter, ‘You’re doing fine, there’s no rush, you’re brilliant.’
Pat Boran, a poet, editor and maker of short films is set to release his new array of poems, Hedge School, in November, published by Dedalus Press.
Pat Boran, a versifier, curator, and microfilm producer, is set to release his latest anthology of poetry called “Hedge School”, under Dedalus Press, anticipated to be available this coming November.