Freedom Xpress

Seán Gaffney died on March 5th 2022

egenart — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 12:54:05 +0000

Yesterday, on March 5th 2022, I got the sad news that Seán Gaffney had passed away earlier the same morning; dying peacfully in his sleep. He would have been 80 years old in August the 22nd this year.

Due to his health issues Seán has been more or less physically isolated during the last two years, since the pandemic started early 2020, and his writing has been his main focus and spiritual nutrition, resulting in the last three of his five suites of poems: Aspects of Ageing (May and July 2020), Four Suites (December 2020) and Journey through Mourning (November 2021).

These books are all for sale at this website as eBooks (downloadable PDF documents) or can be ordered as printed versions from BoD Bookshop, Amazon.com and other online bookstores – and of course from some physical bookstores as well.

Seán was a generous and caring friend, a teacher, therapist, organisation consultant, specialising in group work in a Field theoretical framework, supervisor, author and poet. In other words a multitalented and highly educated person with a curious mind and interest in all the foreign cultures he encountered during his professional work around the world. He had friends and trainees in both Eastern and Western countries, as well as Africa and Middle East.

We are many that will miss Seán’s presence; a presence that will continue living through his writing!

A Journey through Mourning; Seán Gaffney’s fifth suite

egenart — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 16:44:55 +0000

English:

Seán Gaffney’s fifth suite of poems has now seen the light of day: A Journey through Mourning. A suite in prose and poetry.

This suite is a mixture of prose and poetry in a strong and touching celebration of his son, Dara Gaffney, who at the age of fourteen was diagnosed with leukemia. Only a few months later Dara died from his disease.

What is taking place here is an essential part of Seán’s life, where he holds Dara within himself during the mourning process that simultaneously is a life process, in a recurring dialogue each year at Dara’s birth and death days. A life journey with mourning as both a driving force and an emotional landscape.

The book is now available as an eBook in the webshop of Freedom Xpress [https://www.freedomxpress.net/]. In a couple of weeks it will also be available in a printed edition at the BoD Bookshop [https://www.bod.se/bokshop/] – and later also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and other online bookshops.

Svenska:

Seán Gaffneys femte diktsamling har nu sett dagens ljus: A Journey through Mourning. A suite in prose and poetry.

Sviten utgör en blandning av prosa och poesi i en stark och berörande hyllning till sin son, Dara Gaffney, som redan vid fjorton års ålder drabbades av leukemi och dog efter en kort tid. Här utspelar sig en väsentlig del av Seáns liv, där han bär Dara inom sig under den sorgeprocess som samtidigt är en livsprocess, i en återkommande dialog varje år vid Daras födelse- och dödsdagar. En livsresa med sörjandet både som drivkraft och emotionellt landskap.

Boken finns nu tillgänglig som eBook i webbshop:en på Freedom Xpress [https://www.freedomxpress.net/]. Inom ett par veckor kommer den också att finnas som tryckt utgåva och kan då köpas hos BoD:s Bokshop [https://www.bod.se/bokshop/].

A recent and very up-to-date poem by Seán Gaffney

egenart — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 16:25:53 +0000

LIFE ON EARTH

Tragic irony of it pilot whales lost at sea a

Plastic-infested pollution-infected sea on an

Overheating planet so who’d blame them really and

Humans who caused it all driving the survivors back

Into the man-made cesspools of the seas and soon no doubt

Crowdfunding campaigns on Facebook compulsive tallying of

Likes and shares and then the celebrities and God help us

Influencers (no such thing as bad publicity) jumping on any and every

Bandwagon the pilot whales lost from sight in a flurry of

Too little too late just like after Rachel Carson’s SILENT SPRING and I am one who

Read it nodding in assent so is my voice now grounded in my shame this poem just

More too little too late the irresponsibility of inaction my

Shame at the dead whales having lost their way

Stranded on a sandbank in Tasmania their death-throes on the TV news in

Real time as the phrase is now not virtual reality or some such

Convenient deflection from life and death our fellow creatures still there

Dead and dying as I and we look on.

Seán Gaffney’s Aspects of Ageing now in its Second Edition!

egenart — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 16:31:36 +0000

A few days ago we launched the second edition of Seán Gaffney’s suite of poems, Aspects of Ageing!
The reason for this is expressed in Seán’s preface in the new version, which you also may read below.

ASPECTS OF AGEING : PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
My non-professional writing is unplanned and unstructured. So much so that my titles first appear during and/or after the writing, so that possible titles for individual pieces or even suites are not chiselled in stone until the stone is being raised or maybe even standing. For the first time, what I thought was a raised and inscribed stone was still being written on – and I was still the writer!
Clearly, my new pieces were connected backwards to the original suite – and even forwards to my death and its earthly aftermath. Since all my poetry is grounded in my experience, including my memory of past events as a present experience, then my dying is clearly not yet an experience and its aftermath a mystery to me now with no longer a me then to reflect back on and write about.
So having as usual sent each piece to Lars, illustrator and designer of all my suites and also publisher of the most recent two this one included – I proposed a second edition with a defined PROLOGUE, and an EPILOGUE to cover the new material.

Seán Gaffney
Stockholm, June 2020

Boksläpp idag av Seán Gaffneys nya diktsamling!

egenart — Sun, 17 May 2020 15:43:20 +0000

Seán Gaffney har skapat en ny diktsamling vartannat år, sedan han kom ut med The Las Meninas Suite 2016. Idag har vi äran att släppa Seáns tredje diktsvit, med titeln Aspects of Ageing. A suite of poems on the themes of Body, Mind and Spirit, in the context of Mortality.
Här fortsätter han sitt utforskande av sättet att skriva poesi och att skildra sitt liv, såväl genom minnen som reflektioner i direkt kontakt med den omedelbara yttre och inre verkligheten.
I den här sviten av dikter får vi följa Seán Gaffney där han omvärderar och summerar delar av sitt liv, varvat med intima skildringar av de krämpor, sjukhusbesök och vardagliga bestyr som hans åldrande medför.

Seán Gaffney has created a new collection of poems every second year, since he first published The Las Meninas Suite in 2016. Today we are honoured to announce the release of Seán’s third suite, Aspects of Ageing. A suite of poems on the themes of Body, Mind and Spirit, in the context of Mortality, in which he continues to explore his way of writing poetry and to express memories, reflections and direct responses to his immediate reality.
In this suite we can follow Seán Gaffney summarising and re-evaluating his life, in the midst of daily encounters with intimate ailments and hospital experiences, as parts of everyday life as an ageing man.

We are re-constructing

egenart — Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:10:29 +0000

We are working on getting the latest book of poems by Seán Gaffney ready for publishing. Meanwhile we are re-constructing the website to make it ready for booksales.
We hope you enjoy the new look!

Lars Berg, editor

The first book

egenart — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 12:43:25 +0000

Our first published book is Family Matters: Fragments and pieces of an emerging suite by Seán Gaffney. You can order the book from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. Date of publication: June 15, 2018.

Summary: “Seán Gaffney looks back upon his life as a family member over generations, not by describing how things actually happened, but rather directing himself to each and one of his loved ones, living or dead; connecting and filling his poems with alive feelings of joy, sorrow, anger, confusion. Gaffney has a certain spirit of humour in his writing, although his memories indicate great suffering and grievance due to life circumstances. In this book you are introduced to Gaffney’s inner relations, not just within his family but also somewhat wider, and his love and longing for connection and participation on a deeper level of life and over time.”

Den första bok vi publicerar – Seán Gaffneys Family matters: Fragments and pieces of an emerging suite – finns nu att beställa hos Amazon.com i USA och Amazon.co.uk i England. Publiceringsdatum: 15 juni 2018.