Links to the files of
which follow the remarks below:–
This little
collection of twenty-five mainly philosophical poems, written during 1982, may serve
to confirm that I had considerably deepened my approach to and concept of
poetry since Dosshouse Blues (1973–4), and the result should not prove
displeasing to anyone who would prefer to see me, as I myself do, primarily as
a philosopher (albeit a self-taught one) who occasionally dabbles in other
things, poetry not excepted.Doubtless
the fact that I am someone of southern Irish birth who, brought over to England
as a young child, has spent the greater part of his life away from his native
country ... has something to do with this paradoxical state-of-affairs, since
one is often exposed to contrary influences and predilections, both natural and
artificial, neither of which greatly ingratiates one to less complex or,
perhaps I should say, paradoxically confused people?Be that as it may, I accept that I have, at
various times in my life, been prepared to dabble in poetry, even if from a
philosophic rather than a strictly poetic standpoint, since the adoption of alternative
genres makes for variety both in the presentation and conception of one's
thought, and can be beneficial to the writer himself, who could otherwise bog
down in one mould and grow stale or bored, as the case may be.Stressing the Essential, the first of
four collections of philosophical poems written in successive years, precluded
me from experiencing such a stultifying fate and was thus of indirect benefit
to my philosophical will.It was not,
however, any the less easy to write! – John O’Loughlin.
John O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic
of Ireland,
of Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split partly due to his mother's Aldershot origins (her father, a Presbyterian from Donegal, had served in the British Army),
he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who upon the premature death of her husband had initially returned to Ireland after a lengthy marital absence from Athenry) in the mid-50s and, having had the benefit of private tuition from a Catholic priest, subsequently attended St. Joseph's and St. George's RC schools in Aldershot, Hants, and, with an enforced change of
denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been sent to a children's home
by his mother upon the death and repatriation of his ethnically-protective grandmother, he went on to attend first Barrow Hedges Primary School in Carshalton Beeches, Surrey, and then Carshalton High School for Boys. Upon leaving the latter in 1970 with an
assortment of CSEs
(Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs
(General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved to London and went on, via two short-lived
jobs, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford
Square, where, with some prior experience himself of having sat and passed (with merit) an ABRSM Gd.4 piano exam, he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues for the Board's examiners throughout Britain and Ireland.
After a brief flirtation with further education at Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled to do English and History A Levels, he returned to his former job in the West End
but, due to a combination of personal factors, quit the Associated Board in 1976 and began to pursue a literary vocation which,
despite a brief spell as a computer and office-skills tutor at Hornsey Management Agency within the local YMCA in the late '80s and
early '90s, he has steadfastly continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), An Interview
Reviewed (1979), Secret
Exchanges (1980), Sublimated
Relations(1981), and Deceptive
Motives (1981). Since the mid-80s John O'Loughlin has dedicated himself almost exclusively to
philosophy, which he regards as his true literary vocation, and has penned numerous titles of a
philosophical nature, including Devil and
God (1985–6), Towards
the Supernoumenon(1987), Elemental Spectra (1988–9), Philosophical Truth (1991–2) and,
more recently, The Best
of All Possible Worlds (2008), The Centre of Truth
(2009), Insane but not Mad (2011) and Philosophic Flights of Poetic Fancy (2012).
