Roche Valley Radio

What a great session on Roche Valley Radio yesterday. Arriving at Fairfield Hospital I was a touch apprehensive, unsure what I might be asked and even unsure of the exact format of the programme but ready with information to hand about recent projects and of course a wide choice of poems to read. You can listen again at Roche Valley Radio

Picture of Seamus with presenter Nicky

Pictured after the show at Roche Valley Radio

I was met at the entrance by the, also slightly apprehensive presenter, Nicky Smith-Butler. Nicky normally presents a music show and not the Saturday afternoon show with guests as well as the music so was a little unsure about how the programme would go. She and Dave one of the technical and production specialists on the station showed me the studio, helped sort out the connections, microphone position and explain the system. Basically all I needed to do was to speak fairly close to the microphone and not worry.

By now there were a few minutes before the show went live on air to have a quick chat about what might be discussed and then the opening song was rolling towards its end and after a brief introduction I was talking about the “Stories we could tell project” (see blog post of 14th April). Some more music, more discussion on the project, some more music and a poem – a new poem not yet published or on-line called “Come on hat”.

Through tears from the poem’s ending Nicky asked me about Touchstones creative writing group and then played more music picking some of my favourites from Springsteen and Dylan and a few Irish songs from Van Morrison and The Corrs which seemed in keeping with the feel of the show and my obvious Irish heritage.

A discussion about how I made the move to working as a poet and a few more poems (Standby, Seahorses and Different Dad; all blogged here previously and available in Thinking Too Much) and the hour was up.

There had been laughter, tears and some pause for thought and that reminds me just why I do this stuff; poetry can give words that bit more power, it can speak beyond its brief reading and it can speak individually to each person listening – thats why I have to be a poet.