Poems by John Deane

I have had the pleasure of having two poems written for me by John; the first was for my daughter Katie’s 21^st.  What can I say, Katie is my only child and whilst you would think it’s easy to talk about your only child, I couldn’t find the words to express how I feel about her in quite the way John did for me in one of his special poems; I simply told him a few things about where she worked, how she’d met her boyfriend, and obviously how I felt about her and what he came up with was everything I wanted to say but didn’t know how.  It was funny and full of warmth and captured the funny ways and habits she has but yet it was clear in every line the love and admiration which I have for her.  There were more than a few laughs and tears and everyone said how it was so Katie.

It really was one of the highlights of her party, thank you John for writing this special poem for me, Catherine O’Malley.

The second poem was for a friend of mine who was to be 40 and his son of 13 wanted to do something special for his dad.  John had never met David or Jack before and wrote the poem solely from the information I gave him, the result was magnificent.

To see Jack stand up at his Dad’s 40^th and read this poem was amazing and his David was very moved.  David said it was the highlight of his 40^th and it meant so much that Jack had done this for him.  Jack, now a strapping young man of 17 still thinks in his words ‘it was a top poem for my Dad’.

Catherine O’Malley.