Bard of Our Time: Longford author to launch new book

Ballinalee author and poet, Peter Bernard Reynolds, is set to launch his debut book Bard of Our Time in Longford town this Thursday evening, April 16. 

Having been an avid writer since the age of 16, Peter never considered publishing his poetry until his daughter Ciara came across his collections in the attic.

By this point, Peter had temporarily side-lined his passion for writing, however his daughter’s reaction to his work not only encouraged him to take it back up again, it also persuaded him to take it public.

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He explains, “I had stopped writing for a while but then my daughter basically picked up some of my older material from the attic and started reading it. I'd put everything into a binder, put them all together in one place so that it looked like a book, but I’d never actually published anything out of it. When she picked up some of them however and started reading through them, she loved it. 

"I thought 'there must be something in here I'm missing?' but you don't always see the potential in your work that others might notice."

"She loved and enjoyed the material, thought it was really good, and said we should try and publish some of it, so with her encouragement, I started writing again and then we went to see if we could get it published.”  

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Born in England to an Irish father and an English mother - Bernard and Christine Reynolds - Peter grew up in Ballinalee.

After studying toxicology, he returned to Britain where he spent 10 years working for Procter & Gamble. Married to wife Regina, and dad to daughter Ciara and sons, Dara and Oisín, he is now based in Longford town where he is working and writing. 

The title of his debut book, A Bard of Our Time, is a nod to an old tradition. 

“It’s a play on words like the old days where people used to go from house to house telling stories. It's that whole Bard experience. People tell stories and they recite poems to try and teach people about things that they didn't already know.” 

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One of his favourite poems is ‘Coffee in Athena’ which is the opening poem of the book. This, Peter says, was the first poem he created upon his return to writing. In a full circle moment, the book is now going to be launched in the venue the poem is named in honour of, Athena Cafe and Gallery in Longford Town.    

He explains further, “There's loads of different poems in here. There's some about my parents, some about travelling, just different stories and pictures of people. I tried to include some pictures in there just to try something different.” 

Looking back on the process of shortlisting book material from a large volume of work, Peter adds, “I basically wrote more than we needed for the book. Then we went through the poems and pulled out the ones we didn't think matched the theme of the book."

He adds, "This book is the first in a trilogy though so some of the content that didn't make this book was actually perfect for the other books. We've planned to maybe release those at end of this year or maybe early next year. Bard of Our Time was written last year. I've written another five since then and I'm looking forward to writing more.”

The launch of ‘Bard of Our Time’ will take place in Athena Cafe and Gallery in Longford Town on Thursday April 16 from 6.30pm throughout which Peter Bernard will be signing books. All are welcome to attend.