Terminally ill Ulster poet’s new collection is a ‘love token’ for grandchild

Shaun Traynor, 79, who was born in Garvagh, grew up in Portrush and attended Belfast Royal Academy, has called the collection ‘Savannah and her Thirteen Moons’ after his five-year-old grandchild.

Mr Traynor, who lives in London and is the author of several poetry collections, wrote the 13 poems month by month, to post on Facebook and now they are gathered together into an A6 booklet.

The short haiku-style poems celebrate the significance each month’s moon has for humanity, with the 13th one in the collection focusing on environmental concerns.

Mr Traynor said: “At the beginning of 2019 I was unexpectedly diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and I was given only a few months to live without treatment.

“I made a decision to have a really good time in my last few months and go out and about, maybe visit Ireland for a while, just spend it in a very luxurious way, but Covid hit and then I was locked in, shielded.

“The treatment stopped and I chose not to risk going back to the hospital because of Covid, as it was really prevalent here at that time.”

Mr Traynor added: “I wasn’t expecting to live beyond my birthday in July. That was a very loving day with my children, Rebecca and Ruth, grandchildren and partner of 40 years Ursula.

“I never expected to see Ursula’s birthday in October. I didn’t expect to see Christmas. I didn’t expect to see the new year. It’s all very confusing and unsettling because there’s an emotional impact; you have faced up to death in a very strong way and then when you have no way of knowing how much longer it is.”

Because of his diagnosis and Covid, Mr Traynor hasn’t seen Savannah and her sister Carmen for over a year.

“Because of my cancer I’ve had to shield and I couldn’t travel to Brighton where they live. I’ve talked to them on the phone, but it’s difficult to talk on the phone to a child.

“Carmen is 11 and I knew Carmen growing up. We live in different cities, but we still met fairly regularly, but Savannah, I only met a few times and usually in a restaurant, we’d go out for meals and so on. But I didn’t really have the opportunity to watch her grow up and develop, so this is my love token to her. That’s what it is.”

Shaun Traynor is the author of several poetry collections including The Hardening Ground and Images in Winter. His novels for children include Hugo O’Huge, The Children’s Giant and The Lost City of Belfast.

*Savannah and her Thirteen Moons is published by Riversmeet, priced £7.50. To order a copy visit: https://riversmeetproductions.co.uk/publications/

January: The Wolf Moon

This moon was named because of the howling of wolves, howling in hunger around this time of the year.

In January, the wolf howls at the moon - Let me hunt and let me kill!

No sleep for me,

until my cubs are fed,

and all of us a-bed.

The Clutter Moon

My saddest moon, given all the plastic in the ocean and with climate change happening because of us, we are polluting even beyond our given Earth:

Even beyond our milky way,

earth’s clutter somersaults and flies – see the trucks and garbage from exploration; modern meteorites in ancient skies.

Now, Covid

which has widely spread -

so many people sadly dead;

but the planet in my view,

is cleaner than it was, when you

were doing all the bad things that you do.