The Power of Poetry and Language, with Paul O’Mahony.

“We all want to make an impact on life”. “Most people don’t have an interest in being on stage but most people have an interest in making sense to an audience”. In this episode, it’s my pleasure to speak with Paul O’Mahony, a man of many hats and talents. As Paul is a poet, amongst many other professional and personal roles held across his life, we chat about a topic I love, poetry. Poetry mainly and also, public speaking. Paul shares with us, his love of poetry from passing a book of poetry under the desk in secondary school to the impact of Wilfred Owen’s poem on him to writing different types of poetry himself. Paul advises that the discipline poetry gives us is a worthy challenge, the discipline of making every word count. He recommends that because “we all want to make an impact in life “and are “individually distinctive”, poetry writing helps us to understand the importance of thinking about every single word we use, saying and writing not too much but enough to make an impact. He also shares with us some very thought-provoking ideas about public speaking, a term he would prefer not to use and reminds us of how Toastmasters empowers individuals to become more effective communicators. Throughout this episode, you will be inspired to consider the power of words and the language we use in poetry and in speech to explain, inspire, entertain, inform and even transform our feelings and experiences. Paul advises that the better the quality of your language, the better you’ll be able to communicate through poetry and speaking.
Here are links to some of Paul’s poetry and some of what Paul spoke about:
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace
https://paulhomahony.com/
Paul on Twitter: https://twitter.com/omaniblog?lang=en
From Cork with Love: https://audioboom.com/channel/From-Cork-With-Love
2015 World Champion: 'The Power of Words' Mohammed Qahtani, Toastmasters International
https://youtu.be/Iqq1roF4C8s
Dananjaya Hettiarachchi - World Champion of Public Speaking 2014 - Full Speech
https://youtu.be/bbz2boNSeL0 #poetry #toastmastersinternational #toastmasters4golf #PaulO’Mahony #communicationskills