Joyce Murphy

Joyce Murphy

Joyce says that she has been a scribbler all her life. Whenever she felt the urge to write, she would grab whatever writing paper she could find and scribbled stories and poems. Wherever scribbling material was to be found, she wrote on it. This included between the lines of my Enid Blyton books, the white top and bottom margins of her parent’s ‘Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Coat’ program, bits of copybook paper and even blank pages torn from other books.

The storyteller in her also found voice in play – play that to her Mother’s dismay, involved taking down ashtrays, combs, pens and plugs onto the floor and transforming these ordinary appliances into kings and queens and witches and wizards that lived in lands made of ice-cream and honey. Joyce can never remember feeling deprived at her lack of toys but then having an amazing imaginary land to visit whenever she pleased, more than made up for it.

The poems found in her book, ‘Inner Rumblings,’ were written on small pieces of paper, torn out copybook pages and even on blank pages at the end of her biology book – lack of paper was never going to stop her urge to write.

The later poems were typed on her laptop but only after she had scribbled them into a notebook. Pen and paper have always been her method of choice for poems, it is the only way she can translate my emotions onto the page and she sticks to it even today. Stories she types – stories are different and writing her new fantasy book creates a space for time to be spirited away as she loses herself in hours of writing.

She wonders if it was the excitement and pleasure of her childhood, that made early teens so tough for her – the adult world held none of the wonders of the childhood one and she was brought there kicking and screaming – a world where poems were the only outlet for the inner Joyce – the Joyce that was trapped and unable to get out.

The mysterious calling of the book ‘Inner Rumblings’ and the poems inside its pages is of a wolf child who longs to be free, to dance in the rain, make faces and play, not caring about what anyone thinks of her. One day she hopes to find peace and let her be free again.

Joyce’s book ‘Inner Rumblings’ can be purchased here.

Joyce Murphy