“If I didn’t write for a period of time, I would get a bit tetchy. I can be quite easily distracted – especially by television and football – so if I happen to fall out of the routine of writing I do feel guilty that I should be doing something more constructive than shouting abuse at millionaires.” (Colin Hassard)

Do you remember Colin Hassard on that first episode of the Duncairn Cabaret? Motorised bowtie, flowery shirt, Simpsons annual on his knee.

OKAY, the bow-tie wasn’t motorised, but it could have been, just to finish the look. And anyway, when Colin Hassard performs, when you hear what he’s saying and how he’s saying it - when you recognise his humiliations, understand his guilty pleasures, grasp the hard gaze as he calls out inequality, or identify with his very-specific-very-expansive sense of identity – that’s when you start focusing elsewhere. It’s when the pictures start appearing. Pictures of him when that thing happened. Pictures of you. Pictures of them, whoever ‘them’ are.

When I asked him for his most recent achievements he sent me his bio. So, I can’t take credit for this research: “Colin Hassard is a poet from Banbridge. He was the Runner Up in the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2018 and shortlisted for the Aurivo North West Words Poetry Competition 2019. Colin started his career as a performance poet, touring and performing his work on stages all over Ireland; and is a two-time Ulster Poetry Slam champion. In 2020 he was the joint winner of the Wexford Literary Festival’s Cursed Murphy Spoken Word Award. Colin’s work has been published extensively across the UK and Ireland and his debut collection of poems will be released in 2021 with Doire Press.”

You might have seen him performing at The Duncairn - maybe at a Club Fifty night, at Other Voices, or one of those 100 Club classics? However, there is more to his connection with The Duncairn, to the work he has put into us and the impact it has made. “I’ve also hosted various writing workshops which were well-received and have led to me being asked to be the Duncairn’s first Writer-in-Residence,” he explained. We’re still finalising what that will entail but it’s an honour to be asked and I can’t wait to get started. Based on the provisional dates, it seems like the Writer-in-Residence role will end around the same time as the book launch happens, so for me it’ll be perfectly timed for an exciting 2021.”

But, as we all know, reality can be much more down to earth than initially thought, and Colin is the first to admit that those writing workshops of his didn’t always exactly go to plan. “… I was hosting workshops with P5 classes from Holy Family Primary School. They were fantastic kids who had some brilliant creative ideas – and I had a lot of fun working with and getting to know them. However, in the last session, I was making a short introduction to the workshop on what we were going to cover and what the class would be doing. During the introduction one of the girls near the front put her hand up. When I finished speaking, I asked her if she had a question – thinking she wanted to clarify some part of the lesson. However, she just wanted to let me know that she needed to fart! For the children’s workshops you can do as much training and preparation as you like, but you’ll never prepare for everything you’re faced with.”

Colin can take that in his stride though, indeed he can remember what it was like to be a kid – his first ever poem was written as a heart-broken teenager, and he hasn’t looked back. “I was 16 and it was a written in the aftermath of breaking up with my first girlfriend,” he explains. “Needless to say, it was very teenage angsty and will never see the light of day. But, all these years later, that reason of writing to convey my feelings and emotions still remains. It’s just that these days I’ve expanded my subject matter! In my forthcoming book, while there are some poems about love and heart-break, you’ll also find political poems, humorous poems, death poems, silly poems, and more.”

So, what advice does he have for anyone who is considering getting involved with writing poetry? “My advice would basically be to do it. Give it a try – and if you like it, do it again and again, and keep getting better at it. A lot of people are hesitant about poetry as they think of it as being high-brow or hard to understand. And while that is true in some cases, to say you don’t like poetry is like saying you don’t like music. In both art forms there are many different genres and style. Some poetry will be like classical music and some will be like punk rock. So, find the poems and poets you like, be inspired, and then write your own poem.”

“But it’s not as simple as just writing poems,” he tells me, in regard to the chances of making a living out of it. “For the vast majority of creative writers, only a small percentage of their income will be from book sales. The rest will be a combination of things like hosting workshops, live readings or performances, commissioned work, receiving funding, and so on. In that respect, it’s important for poets – or any sort of artist – to be actively seeking out opportunities, and to be adaptable.”

All you have to do is see how Colin spent Lockdown and you can see what he means. “I’ve had new opportunities such as creating a children’s poetry lesson for BBC Northern Ireland and being a regular guest reader at The Black Box Moon Base project’s Zoom sessions for people with learning disabilities. I’ve also written a commissioned poem for Radio Ulster, starting learning to play the piano and done a patio extension! As well as that I’ve been making use of online learning resources to, hopefully, ensure that I’m a better poet and workshop facilitator when all of this is over. As Billy Bragg said, “the system may fail you, but don’t fail yourself”.

Images: Stan Nikolov