John Mahoney’s house feels like a writer’s house.
The front room of the Westmont cottage is lined wall to wall with bookshelves packed with novels, textbooks, poetry and essays. A cuckoo clock, vintage Greta Garbo poster and 1930s framed impressionist-style painting stand out like lighthouses in the sea of literature.
In this room where winter sunlight duels with the illuminating glow of a lamp, Mahoney sits in an overstuffed chair telling stories about his family and whimsical romances during World War II.
“I was really pleased to be drafted,” he said. “It was a chance to see the world.”
At age 24, his division was shipped off to Australia, where he was “mad about the people” and enamored by the landscape. It was there he wrote his first prize-winning poem about falling for an Australian beauty.
Mahoney spent years as an editor for various publications “turning mediocre writing into good writing.” Since retiring, he has been inspired to write poetry.
For Mahoney, writing verse is about capturing fleeting beauty and immortalizing it. His life’s motto and reason for writing comes from a John Keats line: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
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Check it out WHAT John Mahoney will be the featured poet along with music by The Eng Brothers and Dennis Johnson at a poetry reading sponsored by the Westmont Area Friends of the Arts |
“You embody some vision of beauty — painters do it through painting, musicians through their music — we all have one we’d like to put into concrete form that doesn’t fade away,” he said. “You want to have some record of your vision of beauty.”
Though he’s toyed with the idea of self-publishing a book, Mahoney perfects most of his poetry writing through the Downers Grove Writer’s Workshop, which he said is “better than a college course, but you don’t pay and there’s no teacher.”
He has a bound collection of his work titled “Lost Garden,” dedicated to his late wife, Attracta, which he will read from Sunday, Dec. 30, at the Westmont Area Friends of the Arts poetry reading.
“Poetry is any combination of words that casts a spell of wonder and beauty,” he said. “Its purpose is not to teach but to delight.”
His poems spring from life experiences including his service time during World War II, as a factory worker, editor, husband and father.
When he is not reading, writing or tending to the many rose bushes dotting his property, Mahoney is probably in Australia or thinking about it.
“It’s not like I’m traveling the world. To me Australia is like a homecoming,” he said.
