Mike Quinn describes himself as a retired gentleman having fun with poetry. He is reluctant even to call himself a poet, preferring the term apprentice, despite having already produced collections combining poetry and art.
listen to the radio show here (Sept 15)
The apprenticeship began in earnest after a heart event in 2019.
Quinn’s daughter is a young doctor and helped him through the process, but the experience also made him reconsider what he wanted to do with the time ahead. He remembers sitting on his bed in the Blackrock Clinic and realising that something had changed.
“Death pinged my doorbell and gave me a second chance, which I’m delighted to have,” he says.
The expression came from the late Galway poet Kevin Higgins, whose workshops Quinn began attending after his illness. Higgins wrote: “You aren’t fully alive until death pings your doorbell and asks for somebody else.”
For Quinn, the bell had quite literally rung.
“I was thinking a little bell was ringing and I was saying, ‘Wakey, wakey time, Mike. Time to smell the roses and drink the wine a second time.’ It was that kick in the pants. I suppose everybody needs one because we take a lot for granted.”
Poetry had not been a lifelong practice. Indeed, Quinn wonders whether Irish education sometimes teaches children to learn and recite poetry rather than encouraging them to create it. The thought struck him when his young grandson came home from school in the UK announcing proudly that he had written a poem.
“Maybe if somebody said, ‘Why don’t you write yourself a little poem or a little story tonight?’ We’ve not really done that as a process, and I think maybe we’re remiss on that.”
He believes writing can be useful even if nobody else ever sees it.
“Some people have thoughts and ideas, and sometimes just take a few minutes quiet, sit down, write yourself a poem. You don’t ever have to print it. You can share it with somebody or not share it with somebody. I think it’s a good way to cope with the way the world’s going.”
One of Quinn’s earliest adventures in poetry began when Higgins asked his workshop participants to write a monologue. On the train back to Dublin, Quinn began playing with an idea involving James Joyce coming home from work while Nora Barnacle, equipped somewhat anachronistically with a mobile phone, kept ringing to ask where he was.
The result became Rathgar Odyssey, a four-minute poem which subsequently developed into an art piece. Then Quinn decided to take the idea one step further.
Working with artist Joe Boske and technologist Tom O’Connor, he wondered if they could bring Joyce back to life. O’Connor used an existing recording of Joyce to recreate his voice and then had that voice perform Quinn’s modern poem.
“We got Joyce’s accent. We stuffed my words into his mouth, and we had him say the poem Rathgar Odyssey for Nora’s birthday.”
For all the technology, Quinn remains fascinated by the craft of poetry itself and continues to regard himself as an apprentice.
That philosophy took him to a workshop with Paul Muldoon at Lancaster University. There were only five or six people in the room and Quinn arrived with a poem inspired by cherry blossom appearing 11 days early.
“I’m a 70-year-old, but I’m a seven-year-old when it comes to poetry. We need the wonder of a seven-year-old to really explore poetry, I think, and we also need the fact that we maybe have 70 years behind us, so that we can draw on some memories.”
Muldoon’s response to his poem was practical. He suggested moving the third verse to the beginning because Quinn was taking too long to reach the heart of what he wanted to say. He also suggested a new title.
Quinn loved the process.
“When someone reviews your material, it’s one thing, but says, ‘Look, this is how you might make it better,’ that’s different.”
Quinn reckons Muldoon will be the next Irish Nobel Prize winner for Literature
He has continued attending workshops, always listening for what he can learn and how a poem might be improved. He is equally comfortable with the idea that some poems will never make it into a collection.
“That’s okay. Maybe they’ll never make it. That’s still okay.”
His books also bring poetry and visual art together. His first collaboration included the work of Joe Boske, while another brought him together with 85-year-old artist Sean Murphy, whose style Quinn describes as abstract realism.
Sometimes the art comes first and the poem follows; sometimes Quinn begins with the poem and looks for an artwork that resonates with it. It is the conversation between the two forms that interests him.
That idea of art responding to life is also central to his latest collection, ESPWA.
ESPWA means hope in Creole and the collection is connected with Project ESPWA, a humanitarian organisation Quinn has supported since its work in Haiti following the crisis there. The organisation has subsequently worked in countries including Honduras and Ukraine, while also responding to humanitarian need elsewhere.
Quinn wants the book to help bring attention to its work.
“I thought, why wouldn’t we help them get their message out and maybe use ESPWA, which is about hope, and these few poems that I’ve gathered together, to draw more attention to that particular charity and the great work they’re doing.”
He has been associated with the organisation as a supporter since around 2011 and believes it needs greater visibility, more volunteers, corporate support and, very practically, money to collect donated goods and transport them to the places where they are needed.
He is crowdfunding the printing of ESPWA so that proceeds can go directly towards the organisation rather than being absorbed by printing costs.
“If we can use this device, this little book, to get more attention for them, then I’m happy.”
The project brings Quinn back to what poetry can and cannot do. He recalls Salman Rushdie’s observation that a poem cannot stop a bullet and a novel cannot defuse a bomb, but that writers are not helpless.
“We can sing the truth, and maybe that’s what I’m trying to do: sing the truth.”
ESPWA is due to launch on 16 October 2026, with information available through Project ESPWA. Quinn’s earlier Rathgar Odyssey has deliberately had a much smaller distribution, including Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway.
The new collection is travelling further. Quinn says a publisher he met through an unexpected chain of connections offered to publish ESPWA globally. That connection, in turn, led back to Kevin Higgins, the poet whose words had helped set Quinn on this path in the first place.
The circle had closed.
Quinn may still call himself an apprentice, but perhaps that is part of the pleasure. At 70, he has the memories of a lifetime behind him and the curiosity of the seven-year-old he believes a poet still needs.
Mike Quinn’s three songs
Brian Byrne, from Golden Hair album, The Kiss she gave me
Quinn chose Brian Byrne because of the composer’s work putting James Joyce’s poetry to music. For a man whose own poetry has brought Joyce’s voice into the modern world, the connection is fitting. He particularly enjoys the lyrical quality of Joyce’s poetry and how naturally it lends itself to music.
John McCormack, “Macushla”
Quinn has a fondness for older songs and describes “Macushla” as simply beautiful. The song also connects with his own poetry and his experience with Paul Muldoon, after which he experimented with rewriting his cherry blossom poem in the lyrical form of “Macushla”.
James Talley, “We Are All One Family”
Quinn’s final choice reflects the wish with which he ends his Wishing Well conversation. He describes Talley as an American singer-songwriter who had been forgotten for a time but is returning to attention. The song’s message of shared humanity is one he hopes will resonate with listeners.
The three Wishing Well questions
If you could change anything in your life, what would you change?
“I’d love to have the experience that I have right now and be two years of age again. I long to travel back, as everybody does, but we know that’s not possible.”
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
“I think meeting the love of my life, Frances, way back is and will go down as my greatest achievement, and my family obviously who have followed on since then.”
If you were standing in front of the Wishing Well, what would you wish for, big or small?
“I’d wish that we could all be more human to each other. That we all would understand that we’re all one family, and no matter what colour we are, or what race we are, or whatever it is, that we’d all just treat each other as brother and sister.”
The mighty Quinn.
A man of many talents and a dear, dear friend