Beginner’s Pluck: Lani O’Hanlon's viscerally powerful collection of poems

The first, deeply personal poems comprise, almost, a childhood memoir; others, exploring love, loss, and friendship, examine the lives of women who are damaged or dispossessed

Lani O'Hanlon grew up in a showbiz-type family, and, along with her mother and two sisters, was constantly performing on a stage. Picture: Eileen Hyland

An award-winning writer, poet, and movement and dance therapist, Lani grew up in a showbiz-type family, and, along with her mother and two sisters, was constantly performing on a stage.

“I’ve been dancing since I was three, and have had a lot of injuries,” she says. 

“I first worked in my mother’s shop in Stillorgan, doing fashion shows, but my first real job was with an optician.”

She worked with various eye specialists, but when her writing kicked off, and she was published in various magazines, she started working in therapy through movement and yoga, specialising in mental health and palliative care.

“In 2007, I wrote a book on holistic wellbeing through movement called Dancing the Rainbow.”

Lani stared writing her first collection 10 years ago.

“Nearly every poem has been published somewhere,” she says, naming a raft of literary magazines. “And I write for Sunday Miscellany.”

Among other prizes, Lani has won the Hennessy New Irish Writing, the Dromineer Literary Festival, and Poetry on the Lake.

Lani now teaches mediative somatic movement and creative writing with the Arts Office, Waterford City and County, and Waterford Healing Arts.

Who is Lani O’Hanlon?

Date/place of birth: 1968/ Cork but lived in Sligo and Wexford before settling in Dublin aged 11.

Education: St Rafaela’s Secondary School in Stillorgan; Lancaster University. MA in Creative writing. (2015.)

Home: Waterford.

Family: Husband John Doyle; daughters Michelle and Louise.

The day job: Freelance facilitator and mentor.

In another life: “I’d be a musician. As a child we did cabaret and singing, but I would have liked to have played music.”

Favourite writers: Jack Gilbert; Eavan Boland; Paula Meehan; Bernard MacLaverty; John McGahern, and Claire Keegan.

Second book: “I’d like to write a poetry collection on bereavement.”

Top tip: “Do not try to do well, do not try to do nicely. Just simply write.” (Quote from Moshe Felden Krais.)

Twitter: @laniohanlono

The debut

The Landscape of the Body

Dedalus Press, €12.79

The first, deeply personal poems comprise, almost, a childhood memoir. They portray a tumultuous childhood, where dance was a way to pay the milk bill. Others, exploring love, loss, and friendship, examine the lives of women who are damaged or dispossessed.

The verdict: A viscerally powerful collection that took my breath away.