#30 | We Forgot We Were Kings - Alan Cooke (The Wild Irish Poet)
“In the end, all darkness turns into beauty.”
My guest today is Alan Cooke, a filmmaker, poet, and speaker from the wilds of Ireland.
Alan’s poetic and literary work is based on the narrative of the medicine of nature, forged from the sorrow of undergoing numerous personal and cultural losses in his days. Back in 2009, Alan won an Emmy for writing a film about his time in New York City, titled Home. After returning to Ireland, he spent 13 years as a wandered and walker of the Irish landscape, refining the power of words to alchemize trauma into beauty.
In our conversation today, we speak of his youth growing up in Dublin and his initiation into the poetic imagination, we speak of his hard days in New York and the cascade of loss that met him upon returning to Ireland, and we speak of how nature brought Alan back to a deeper sense of his masculinity, and how in the end, all darkness turns to beauty.
And of course, Alan shares a few poems. I’ve layered the beautiful harp playing of Andee Anko behind his words.
LINKS
Home - Emmy winning film written by Alan Cooke
The Poetic Imagination - talk by Alan Cooke
Retreat for Men - Feb 19-21, 2021, Ireland
JOIN THE MYTHIC MASCULINE NETWORK
SHOW NOTES
Ireland encounters you
“A man cannot be reborn through the mind, only through the sense” John Moriarty
Growing up in Dublin
Arriving in New York just after 9/11
Producing the film “Home”
“I left because I needed to be empty again.”
Igniting the poetic imagination
Poem: The Farmer’s Hands
“In the end, all darkness turns into beauty”
The role of the Bard
Eulogy for my mother
Nature brought me back to my masculinity
Men will betray you to be blessed by you
Being fathered and mothered by the landscape
Poem: Father
We forgot we were Kings
I lost my marriage but I betrothed Nature
Poem: Invictus
Let your soul set your course
The only way home is through service
