BOOK REVIEW
“He is living proof that paradise and hell can co-exist”
A Beautiful Complexity, is an empowering read discussing topics on accepting loss, heartbreak, and the painful truths while healing written by Amy O’Connor.
There are works included based on relationships that will resonate in parts, providing insight and perspective showcasing her love, loss, vulnerability in a sensitive yet liberating way in this poetry and prose collection.
With a sense of self-discovery after a heartbreak, this journey is penned in a beautiful way with a mix of lengthier pieces and shorter, there’s a good mix to keep the reader entertained when reading. It will make the reader cry, laugh, and overall feel the stories being told.
From loving someone to feeling the bittersweet heartache, the intimacy of the words really showcases the stunning body of work as a whole. Including pieces on wishful thinking, longing, fear of settling, broken promises, and tender love - there’s certainly something for everyone who’s ever had a broken heart.
There’s a great pace with heart-wrenching reads and reflective stories of love and grief that truly make this book a stand-out masterpiece. And although the book is centered around a breakup, there’s insight to the heartbreaking events during and in the aftermath. The writer writes her way back to herself, discovering self-love in a breath-taking way showcasing there will always be a silver-lining.
A Beautiful Complexity, is a terrific book from beginning to end that displays the writer's voice through these excellent poetry and poems while diving deeper into her experience with love and loss. It’s an empowering read showcasing her survival, although some parts appear she was unaware.
Amy O’Connor was born in Tipperary, Ireland. She spent much of her early twenties travelling the world to experience different cultures and has lived in both Barcelona, Spain and Toronto, Canada. Amy has an unyielding passion for evoking emotion through poetry and is committed to showing others just how cathartic and profound poetry can be. In 2019, Amy published her debut poetry anthology, A Beautiful Complexity. Amy also runs a successful Instagram poetry account @aocpoetry. She studied journalism at the University of Limerick and now works in communications. She lives in Cork, Ireland, where you will be sure to find her perusing the poetry section of her local bookstore.
Words by Danielle Holian
INTERVIEW
Tell us a bit about your writing background.
I have no professional credentials when it comes to writing. I didn’t study it at college or master any certificates along the way. But writing has always been a pursuit that I am incredibly passionate about. English was my favourite school subject, as I loved the freedom of writing essays and exploring my creative voice. After secondary school, I studied journalism at college which, at the time, I particularly enjoyed. Getting to connect with other people and learn their stories was an aspect of it that I found most intriguing. However, soon after graduation, I understood that I didn’t have the grit it takes to be a news journalist, so I decided to follow a career in communications instead. This, I knew, would still allow me to incorporate writing as part of my workday and continue to work on my word craft where needed.
What, or who, inspired you to start writing?
Growing up, and particularly throughout my teenage years, I used writing as a coping mechanism for understanding my emotions and relieving stress. It came to me quite naturally, my mind always coaxing me to utilise this tool as a method of decompressing. I guess it may be unusual that no one person or thing in particular inspired me to start writing, but it felt right at the time and I haven’t looked back since.
And what influenced your chapbook poetry collection ‘A Beautiful Complexity'?
I began writing the collection, unknowingly at first, roughly four years back as I was going through an episode of heartbreak and it became such a comfort to me that I decided to see it through. All of a sudden, I had this catalogue of work with a running theme throughout and I knew then that I wanted to compile it into a collection of work.
How has your life in general influenced your work in general?
By nature, I’m quite a sentimental character and very much an observer of the world. I tend to notice the finer details about people and places more so than others might, and I like to convey these intricacies in my work. This can range anywhere from the complexities of human emotion to the shift in atmosphere when the seasons change. I’m a firm believer in pathetic fallacy and how we are all intrinsically linked with the world that surrounds us, so I guess my day to day life is spent observing how this works for and impacts me. I then personify many natural elements in my work and showcase how they are reflective of what we feel as humans.
And how do you find the balance between writing about your own personal experiences and exploring topics that may not necessarily be autobiographical, but still speak to many people?
I think this very much ties in with the point that I made about being sentimental by nature but also being incredibly aware of my own emotions. If I’m feeling blue, hopeless or even confused, I will naturally write material that mirrors this. Readers will then sometimes message me and tell me how much they can relate, and how refreshing it is to see their feelings in words on paper. This will then ignite a type of drive in me to create material that others can relate to, so I will try to channel this where and when I can. Although much of my material is thematically doleful, I would have written some of this work on days where I was feeling particularly happy. And I am able to do this because of the drive that others continue to give me. This, in turn, allows me to separate my work from being auto-biographical at times to creating work for readers when they need it most.
What makes a piece of your writing right to post on your Instagram, versus the ones that stay in the book?
Instagram is an invaluable platform for aspiring writers to showcase their work, and it’s truly inspiring to see the plethora of writers joining the site for this very reason. However, the platform is built on a foundation of immediate information and infinite scrolling. This, as a result, means that the platform doesn’t encourage longer attention spans. Users want to see images and videos with immediacy, so posting longer pieces of writing and cramming heavy text into the confined limits of the square isn’t advisable. I try to keep my prose and more long-form work for my collections. You must cater to your medium where possible. That’s why I find it suitable to cross-collaborate my work with my photography in an attempt to tie in a visual where possible. More concise, poetic language, musings and poems seem to work best on the platform, but that, of course, doesn’t take anything from the significance of your more long-form work. It truly is a matter of catering to your audience and medium.
And finally, what advice would you give to aspiring writers?
You must listen to your gut. This is a piece of advice I wish I hadn’t forsaken. There will be times that you will need to push past the fear and your comfortable boundaries, but I believe gut instinct is a completely different animal. I’m blessed to have a very supportive cohort of friends and family who champion my work. But in the past, their support pushed me into showcasing and publishing material that I truly wasn’t happy with or felt wasn’t entirely ready for publication. My gut was telling me not to do it, but instead of listening, I pushed its voice back down and ignored it, pushing out work that I now feel doesn’t represent my writing skills in the manner that I wish it would. Knowing the difference between listening to your gut when something isn’t right and surging through fear to overcome hurdles is an imperative skill to have and I believe crucial in the world of writing.