For Your Bookshelf: "Who Would be a Girl When You Can be a Boy?"

   These poems, updated and with extended notes, have now been published. They can be purchased directly by contacting me at cormace.mccloskey@yahoo.com when I will provide you with the necessary information; and secure payment can be made via PayPal. Alternatively you can ask for a copy at your local library ISBN 9780956845504

Author background and synopsiss

   I am Northern Irish, from Portrush, and the fourth oldest of eleven children. A retired Civil Servant, I live with my wife Jenny near Norwich. I am a "mature student" graduate of the University of Liverpool. I can be found at Twitter, WordPress and Blogspot.

   In the past I have enjoyed collecting and singing traditional folk songs in public, and share with my wife Jenny an interest in travel particularly to places of historic interest. We have visited countries as far apart as Cuba and China.

   More broadly, I am a strong believer in poetry in translation. Whatever the drawbacks may be, reading it is almost always an enriching experience. And I have a particular interest in Chinese poetry in translation.

   "Who Would be a Girl When You Can be a Boy?" is my first book of poems, (self published); it draws on a lifetime of experience, which is why it is subtitled "Autobiographical & Other Poems". So it is important, given some of the dark aautobiographical content, that the "other"  is not overlooked. Apart from the deeply personal, there are poems on the themes of: Christmas, football, travel, religion, politics, (social conflict and terrorism), and poems such as "The Ulster Crow" and "The Red Hand of Ulster", that reflect with clarity and wit, on that corner of the globe from which I came. And not to be overlooked are the character studies and pen portraits of people that I met along the way: many intriguing, and some, inspirational.