augurpress

The Poet's Eye is a collection of Celia O'Neill's poems that were bought together posthumously. The poems here lie broadly in two main kinds with various other topics and themes woven in. The first kind considers the more poignant side of personal experience we, or others, may face; love, family, spirituality, loss, choice, ageing, death and God. The second kind details the smaller 'first world problems' (and perks!) that come and go but yet remain integral to our lives. Celia was, by her own admission, a bit of an 'outsider', never content to do things (or think!) much like everyone else, and this in turn cultivated her particular way of embracing her own experiences and those of others with whom she felt an affinity.

She was deeply empathetic to the tragedies which people face, as expressed in poems such as 'The refugee' and 'To a spouse with Alzheimers'. She was in awe of the metaphysical nature of ourselves and of situations: 'The people I never knew', 'If Nana had married Arthur Underwood'; and she wasn't afraid to embrace the darker, more macabre side of herself in poems such as 'The stalker' and 'Crows at high tide'. She was never shy and was always only a step away from poking fun at herself, as shown in 'Relaxation tape' and 'Yoga'.

Although melancholy manifests in some of Celia's poems, there is always evidence of an undeniable omnipresent spirit.

"You see merely an old grey stone, whereas I see still life magic."
Celia O'Neill