James Linnane

The Potless Generation James Linnane

I have known James for five writing years. We met through a shared love of poetry and are members of an Irish writing group named www.splinter4all.com. Over the past three years, quite a few of us have met face-to-face and have even organised intensive workshops on weekends away around the country. We are all great friends, brothers and sisters in writing. For me personally, James is a modern day Joyce. He is intense, passionate, plays with words and sounds with incredible skill and wit and is not afraid to write with complete abandon. He fills this book with a heart that gives it meaning and his brain is always teeming - his own words but I agree! He writes from the heart to the heart, a powerful method that brings the reader into his world. He is also a great performer. One has to hear his rendition of Head for the Door to truly enjoy it. I particularly love his deeper, personal poems on his journey through life, his sense of loneliness, loss, change and memories of times past are palpable. I also love his nature poetry, so descriptive, full of vivid imagery; words almost jump off the page! James's love of his country, his belief in dignity, truth, justice, democracy and the hardship experienced by the common man, are so well expressed in this book. This emanates from his strength of character and brilliance of mind. There is immense energy in his writing. At one of our group weekends away, I gave a workshop on haiku, which involved a ginko (nature walk) in an oak woodland in Fairymount, Co. Tipperary. He wrote the most amazing haiku. In fact, I can still remember them; they were so alive with scents, touch, taste, colour, sound and the unique wit that comes from this man! I wish James the very best with this fine collection of poetry. I hope he gets the recognition he deserves and that someday, our grandchildren, or great- grandchildren might be studying The Starkness of Silence or The Hand that Rocked the Cradle for their Leaving Certificate. Fine writing my friend: ) Love Máire x Máire Morrissey-Cummins Greystones Co. Wicklow The Potless Generation is where my country and our world is at right now, put where we are by the unscrupulous, ruthless and greedy. Former millionaires are now paupers and the divide between the rich and poor is an ever-widening gap. I doubt there is any true artist who does not know just what it is like to be potless from time to time, myself included. But of course, this collection is not merely about that and it visits many places, emotions and themes, from the sublime to the ridiculous, with some more sombre stuff thrown in there too. - James Linnane James Linnane writes from the heart to the heart, a powerful method that brings the reader into his world. ... I particularly love his deeper, personal poems on his journey through life, his sense of loneliness, loss, change and memories of times past are palpable. I also love his nature poetry, so descriptive, full of vivid imagery; words almost jump off the page! James's love of his country, his belief in dignity, truth, justice, democracy and the hardship experienced by the common man, are so well expressed in this book. This emanates from his strength of character and brilliance of mind. - Máire Morrissey-Cummins Linnane's themes are frequently dark: aging, nostalgia, regret, the brutish incompetence and indifference of some of those who rule us politically and financially. Aging is presented as winter drawing in and night coming on. But humour often breaks through, like sunshine through the clouds. - Kieran Furey