Making a Difference – When Poetry Becomes Action: Christy Fleming’s Words of Hope

For more than three decades, Christy Fleming has been helping people navigate life’s difficult moments. As a therapist, author and poet, he has worked with men struggling with their mental health, communities affected by homelessness and families living with Alzheimer’s. His latest project, a song inspired by his own poem Glowing From Within, continues that lifelong commitment to supporting others, this time raising awareness and funds for the Friends of St. Luke’s Cancer Charity and the Liberty Soup Run.

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The idea came not from a single event, but from a growing awareness of two issues that seemed to appear everywhere he looked.

“Every time I was going to the shop or meeting people, somebody was saying, ‘Did you hear about so-and-so?’ They either had cancer or they were homeless,” he says. “It got me thinking.”

Those conversations also brought back deeply personal memories. Fleming lost both of his parents to cancer within six weeks of each other in the early 1980s, an experience that has stayed with him throughout his life. More recently, other members of his family, including his former wife, have also faced the disease.

“My dad went first, and six weeks later my mother passed away,” he says. “All the attention had been focused on my dad, and we didn’t even realise my mum had cancer. They were always together, and when one went, that was it.”

Those experiences gave his poem an emotional depth that reaches beyond statistics. While writing about cancer, Fleming also found himself thinking about people facing the disease without the security of a home.

“How would anybody cope?” he asks. “It’s bad enough trying to deal with cancer when you have somewhere to live, but if you haven’t got anywhere to stay and you’re on the streets, that must be incredibly difficult.”

That connection led him to support two charities whose work reflects different aspects of vulnerability. The Friends of St. Luke’s Cancer Charity supports patients receiving treatment, while the Liberty Soup Run works directly with people experiencing homelessness across Dublin.

For Fleming, however, the song is simply the latest chapter in a much longer journey.

Writing has been part of his life since the early 1990s. Poetry, he says, cannot be forced. It arrives quietly, often when least expected.

“I just allow it to happen,” he says. “Something triggers it, and then it just seems to come out of my head. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Over the years his words have found many different audiences. He has written poetry collections, worked extensively in community development, supported men’s mental health groups and helped facilitate creative projects in Ballymun and with the Simon Community. Music has often played an important part in that work, bringing people together while encouraging confidence, creativity and conversation.

His latest poem, Glowing From Within, was eventually set to the melody of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind, with musician Fiach Moriarity recording the finished song for YouTube. While Fleming is the first to admit he is “definitely not a singer”, he was delighted to hear his words given a musical voice.

The project is less about commercial success than creating awareness. If the song encourages conversations about cancer, homelessness or the importance of community support, Fleming believes it has already achieved something worthwhile.

That belief has been a constant throughout his career. Whether working with people affected by mental health challenges, Alzheimer’s, homelessness or cancer, he has consistently returned to the same simple idea: words matter, particularly when they remind people they are not facing life’s difficulties alone.

It is perhaps fitting that Glowing From Within began as a poem. Poetry has always sought to give language to experiences that are otherwise difficult to express. Fleming’s latest work continues that tradition, transforming quiet reflection into practical support for two charities whose work offers hope at moments when it is needed most.

https://youtu.be/6qh6bAAxiVo?is=72kqz1mw8mAQMIZt