Win a $15 GC: Poetry from my Heart by Paul Guerin

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Paul Guerin will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Inside my writing space

I am a romantic and a dreamer and looking back over the years, I think maybe I was born that way.

It all started in my early childhood days. I lived with my grandmother in a small townland village in County Cork, Ireland and I was enchanted by the emerald green landscapes, the rivers and the sparkling mountain streams. I learned to fish at age four and it became a lifetime passion. I soaked up the Irish storytelling and I observed and loved the musical Irish lilt of speech.

Looking back, I can see it was a magical time, incorporating everything I needed to touch the soul of a young Irish boy. Along with the magic, however, there was hardship, fear and insecurity.

Today as I sit writing this, I realize that the magic of the land and its Irish people, tempered by the adversity I experienced, created the man I have become. After many years of only seeing the dark side of my youth, today I find solace in and gratitude for, all my childhood experiences and I can look at all of them as gifts that have helped me to get here today.

Being a romantic and a dreamer has brought me many good times and some not so good outcomes!

For years I chased the notion of “the perfect romance”. I had endless expectations of a kind of needy love that was both unhealthy and unachievable. The upside was, that all of the deep longing, pain, joy and feelings of loss associated with these unrealistic expectations, made me the person I am today. The downside was, in failed, angry and hurt relationships. Those feelings, which I call “designer experiences”, found space inside my soul and in that quiet place, intensified, were identified, then written down and emerged as the poetry from my heart.

For years I focused on my troubled beginnings. We were the poorest of poor in my early childhood days in Ireland. My father took off and my mother was not available either physically or emotionally. I lived with my grandmother Nana Guerin. Nana was a fearsome Irish woman, sporting a black dress, black shawl and a razor-sharp tongue. Life was hard and I felt insecure, abandoned and unloved. I learned later in life, that those “designer moments” were the genesis of my poetry. Without those experiences, my inner poet likely would have remained hidden away.

It took many years of soul-searching and positive encouragement, for me to emerge from my secret writing space, step out of the literary closet and admit to family and friends and even to complete strangers, that YES I am a poet and I have stuff to share with you, some of which you will most definitely find personal and sensitive. I published my first book in March of this year and I am working on my second book.

My first book is called “Poetry from My Heart: A Journey through Feelings” and you can find it at www.paulguerinpoems.com or on my Paul Guerin Author page on Facebook @paulguerinpoems.

Today my writing space has glass walls and is open to the world and I am comfortable to share my poetry without reservation. I am humbled and grateful for this opportunity and for the freedom it brings.

Thank you for inviting me to your guest blog. I hope you enjoy my book and that it brings you hope and inspiration as writing it has done for me.

Warmly,
Paul Guerin

Poetry: writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience, in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.

Poetry means different things to different people. For me, it is all about feelings. If it captures the emotions of the reader, a poem will resonate and fill the soul. It can mean everything to one person and not much at all to another. The mood of the reader and no-one else determines the outcome.

For example, love poems are wonderful when you are in love and their passion is amazing. If you are facing adversity, however, love poems likely will just annoy or even anger you.

In "Poetry from my Heart", I have attempted to divide the poems into categories which will fit your mood no matter what you are experiencing at the time you choose to explore them. There should be something for everyone, no matter whether you are in love, out of love, you hurt, you are lonely, angry, abandoned, or you are facing other challenges in your life.

Poetry has a healing power that nurtures the soul and quietens the mind, and so I hope that whatever your situation is in life, you will find something here that helps you safely on your journey.

Enjoy an Excerpt

You awoke my world

I met you and you awoke my world
Suddenly the birds sang louder
And the music seemed more magical
Our souls touched and our hearts beat as one

We both know that this is not possible
We will pinch each other to see if it is real
We both know there are hurdles ahead
But just now we do not care

I promise you I will never control you
Promise me you will love me always
Let us promise each other forever friendship
Let’s become the best friends of our dreams

I promise you can be free with me
That I will always want you to fly on your own
I will always be here for you no matter what
I swear these promises to the God inside my soul

Time will pass and we will climb mountains
We are a team of simple, pure, amazing grace
The changes we have made in our lives are huge
Let’s move forward with the speed of mutual lightening

At times I feel afraid of the pace and the risks this change may bring
At times I simply want to be alone to figure the right path
At times I stagger, falling and getting back up
Always, I have been there for you without a word

When you need space, it is freely yours to have
I will never hold you when you need to be free
My soul will never smother your free spirit
I will always hold you when you need to be held

About the Author:

As a very young boy, I lived in a small Irish townland village called Castletownroche. The village was situated in the very beautiful and pastoral County Cork. I had an Irish uncle who played in a showband and who taught me to fish at age four. I wrote a poem about that. My mother was absent and I never knew my father. I wrote another poem about that. We lived in abject poverty. I survived by the grace and loving kindness of an old Irish grandmother sporting a black dress, black shawl and a wicked temper driving a razor-sharp tongue. I called her Nana.

Nana taught me to fear her retribution and used it to keep me safe and provide security that I could find nowhere else. Well into my teens, my inner world was cast in fear and I had no real sense of belonging or attachment to anyone or to anything. The inability to handle those feelings eventually led me to substance abuse. My journey along that road has generated much of the poetry of adversity, hope, and inspiration that you will find in this book. I truly hope that those poems in particular will salve the souls of those of you who are still trudging that happy road to destiny on your way back from hell.

Not surprisingly, I have had difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships throughout my life, and much of the love poetry is about those failures and many, many, sorry attempts to return to love. Those painful/happy experiences had a major influence on my writing.

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