Colin Ian Jeffery

Published in the February 2008 issue of DECANTO - Colin Ian Jeffery was Centre Stage Poet 1. What age were you when you first became interested in poetry? Seven, a choirboy, when I heard the vicar in church read the twenty-third psalm. The beauty of the words struck my soul like lightning and my Muse began to sing. I then found poetry being read on the BBC radio Home Service would listen in awe and delight to such poets as Dylan Thomas, John Betjeman, and Ted Hughes. In childhood A voice called to me And I hear it calling still. 2. What inspires you? I compose best while in spiritual pain --- poems forged white hot, hammered upon the anvil of anguish, aspects of love, searching for God and some meaning to the great mysteries of the Universe. My poetry rests firmly upon the belief in a loving God. 3. What does poetry mean to you? The highest of mankind's literary achievement, timeless, appealing down the ages, revealing imagery of a poet's struggles and experiences of the world around him. " Poems are the children of the poet." This was told to me by the English poet John Betjeman, with whom I corresponded with when a young man. 4. Who are your favourite poets? Dylan Thomas, William Shakespeare, John Keats, Oscar Wilde, Rupert Brooke, Lord Byron, John Betjeman, Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot. 5. Who has been your greatest inspiration? You may choose more than one. Dylan Thomas. William Shakespeare, John Betjeman, my father, and a priest, the Reverend Doctor Paul James Dunn, for his great support and encouragement. 6. Has poetry still a place in the modern world? Very much so, mankind without the imagery of poetry would be like the sun perpetually eclipsed, leaving souls in darkness never glimpsing the light nor seeing the next mountain to be climbed. Poetry is the best for expressing both the excellence and worst the human heart can experience. The Muse inspires within a secret landscape of the poet's heart. Poetry is as important to the poet as is the very beat of his heart. Poetry is the magical language of the soul, daily bread, sweet and joyful, sometimes raging purple storms endured with stark thunder clouds of unhappiness and relentless grief. Poetry is a flickering candle within the darkness that is shielded by the poet against the blows of the wind. Love must be set free For this I know The caged bird sings for flight Dying captive Looking through the bars. 7. Have you a favourite poem? Stand, This England, Blackwood's Magazine, Home Words, The Lady, Punch, Country Life, New Yorker, The Month, Decanto, Contemporary Review, Day by Day, Reform, PoeSttry Church, Africa, The British Chronicle, Catholic Pictorial, Best of British, Irish Tatler, Country Life, Outposts, Spectator, Yours, Bard, Earth love, Quantum Leap, The Reader, Jewish Chronicle, Sea Breezes, Incelement, Earth Love, Quantum Leap, Saint Austin Review, Africa, Evergreen, Springboard, Poetry Monthly, Carillon, Earth love, Reflections, Poetic hours, Dandelion arts magazine, Linkway, Cauldron, Awen, Inclement, Poetic Hours, Ashvamegh, Reflections, Army and you, The K9 Independent, Scots Magazine, Army and you, Born Free, Bombay Gin, Peeking cat, Quadrant, Gorilla Organisation, Crashtest, Modern Literature, FreeeXpression, plus various anthologies. Many, but my all-time favourite is, 'Death shall have no dominion' by Dylan Thomas. 8. Where have you been published? WWF, Catholic insight, Freexpression, Yuan Yang, Quadrant, Modern Literature, plus poems included in various anthologies. Biography Colin Ian Jeffery was born 20th May,1942, in Redhill hospital, Surrey, England, during World War Two, and is the younger of two sons, Anton his brother two years older. Father and mother Frank and Betty Jeffery. Frank served in the artillery with the 8th army (desert rats) in North Africa, was wounded and invalided home. He became a taxi-driver and drove a cab until his death from cancer,10th May 1978. He is buried with his wife in St. Mary's churchyard on Caterham-on-the-hill. Frank and Betty separated in 1949 the sons remaining with their father. Colin was educated at St. John's Church of England school in Caterham, and at seven went to the Modern School for Boys in Purely, and then to Clarks College in Croydon. In 1964 he became a Roman Catholic and was accepted for the priesthood by bishop Cashman of Arundel and Brighton in 1969, and was offered a place in a seminary in Spain but had met the great love of his life and chose his soulmate. Colin was seven, a choirboy, when he became entranced by poetry after hearing the vicar read the twenty-third psalm. The beauty of the words struck his soul like lightning and his Muse began to sing. He found poetry was being read on the BBC radio Home Service and would listen in awe and delight to such poets as Dylan Thomas, John Betjeman, and Ted Hughes.)