Poetry launch
Events
Retired Catholic school teacher John Kelly has released his second poetry anthology called Essentially Unfinished.
It follows his well-received collection A Schoolbag Full which he launched in 2021 after he finished his 40-year career in education at Sacred Heart College in 2020.
Essentially Unfinished will be launched on Wednesday October 16 at 7pm in the hall of St Ignatius’ College Junior School, Queen Street, Norwood. John also completed his primary and secondary years of schooling at St Ignatius’ in 1965.
The latest collection contains poems selected from his previous publications: Seasons of the Spirit (1978), Bearings (1982), and A Schoolbag Full, as well as some 50 new poems under the heading Late Pickings.
The poems in Essentially Unfinished form a chronicle of local, global, and personal continuity and change spanning six decades: 1964-2024.
Over the years, John’s poems have been published in school magazines, and issues of Quadrant, Eureka Street and News Weekly. He has also accepted invitations from a number of schools to read and discuss his writing, and to encourage creative writing in students.
The major themes that emerge from this latest collection are family background; childhood and adolescent experience; educational, social, and political concerns; the influence of literary, painted, and architectural artworks; and faith in a time of rapid and far-reaching change.
Free registration to the launch can be accessed on trybooking.com. All welcome. Books will be available for purchase on the evening.
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