“Pools of Light”, my collection of poetry, prose and photography was published in July 2015 by Hook Publishing. To some extent the book follows the approach I have taken in this blog, a mix of old and new, personal, and public, as I said, the three P’s, poetry, prose and photography. 
it is very heartening to be able to say that readers of this work have been very kind in their comments and responses. At each of the launches I was able to recount the true story of two people who read it from cover to cover in one sitting.
My sister Aileen Anne Brannigan, a wonderfully gifted stone carver, did so and burst in to tears!
Michelle Dooley Mahon a wonderfully gifted writer, wrote a poem!
So this work carries a health warning, dip into it, browse at your leisure, but if you choose to read all in one go, well then, reader beware…
It was quite a sight for me to wander down a lovely old street in my home place of Kilkenny and see my work displayed in the window of Stone House Books, beside the new book by Harper Lee. Now that was humbling experience. The first of the book launches was in Stone `House Books with Martin Bridgeman from Local Radio station KCLR and Liz Walsh, the owner of the great bookstore at the foot of the famous mediaeval flight of steps know as the Butterslip.
Next up was launch by Michelle Dooley Mahon in Byrnes Books in Main Street Wexford. Michelle kindly allowed me use her poem, “On speed reading ‘Pools of Light’ for the first time”. I have include it as an afterward in the book and reproduce it here.
On speed reading Pools of Light
(for the first time)
Sitting hunched
in a woolen throw
while a hand rolled cigarette
– smoulders, unsmoked,
in a blue ceramic ashtray
brought home on a plane
from sunny Spain,
I allow my mind to go
where Connelly leads,
as toddler and older,
down narrow lanes,
as ageing makes bolder with
Hobos and Hats and Hairy Ankles
he strings verses like beads,
the children tied to the doors,
and so I find the self, in time –
caught between memory
and another mans mind.
Michelle Dooley-Mahon ©2015
The final launch was in the Fort Conan Hotel, Duncannon, Co Wexford and with that the book is well and truly blown into the public domain, if you should purchase or otherwise run across this, hope you enjoy.
Kevin