Open Gates by Frankie Quinn

Product Code: 9781999347963

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Weight: 181.0g

Product Condition: New

'Feral youth, soldier, prisoner, peacebuilder, and poet, Frankie Quinn's journey has been an extraordinary one. His reflections - from the brutal solitute of his Crumlin Road cell to the tranquil woodlands of his native Tyrone - are equally extradinary.'

“Poetry, from a revolutionary perspective, is very important. It has an awful lot to add to people’s understanding and struggle. Each poem that is written has a certain message, hidden or otherwise, about certain events. It’s good for people to be able to draw them out. One of my poems is called ‘Hunger’ where I talk about the crystallising of sands, but it’s actually about Bobby Sands and the Palestinian hunger strikers – it’s a play on words. It links the whole lot together and gives a political perspective.”

“It doesn’t matter to me if I don’t make a penny out my poetry – it’s all about understanding. There’s a lot of deep emotional stuff there about mental struggle from when I was in solitary confinement. I was in solitary confinement for around four years."

“There is certain post traumatic stress that I would deal with, and there is a lot of people in West Belfast and others places here that would have that and they don’t even know it. I like people like that to sit down and be able to read something that they can grasp.”’