Gill O’Halloran lives in London, in an ordinary house full of teenagers, cats and CDs.
Her personal and professional experience is a constant reminder that time on planet earth is precious and this has prompted her Benjamin Button lifestyle to compensate for being born old. Having reached her teens Gill loves dancing at music festivals, but she's looking forward to the day she becomes a child.
Gill is the author of a book on addiction, ‘Introduction to Co-dependency for Counsellors’, published under the name Gill Reeve. She has also written short stories, but her passion is poetry which she 's enjoyed performing at poetry venues in South and Central London. Her poems have been published in online magazines Luciole Press, The Guild of Outsider Writers and Empowerment4women, in print magazines Citizen32, Socialist Women and Poetic Licence, and in the anthology ‘Nothing But Red’ a book bringing attention to violence against women worldwide. This is her first collection.
A REVIEW BY JOLEN WHITWORTH
In a world which has all but abandoned the arts for sensationalism, reality shows and instant everything, it was wonderful to read Gill O’ Halloran’s This 7 Year Old Walks into a Bar. Gill appreciates art and it shows in her fine craftsmanship.
Her passion, keen observation and appreciation of living in every facet of life have given her a rich backdrop on which to paint and she doesn’t disappoint us. Each piece in her new book vibrates across the page with the same thrum as you might get from classical guitar.
The gentle tones which linger in lines like Once upon a time we were Bandolian lovers/ Bougainvillea falling down burnt orange walls/white shuttered windows on the Provencal sky/ the rosemary song of lavender hills and/ my wide-eyed blindness to your opiated sighs in ‘Icarus Decending’ caress the readers palate much like a 1918 bottle of Chateau Latour.
Gill’s work is lyrical, strong and poignant. The poems range from delicate impressionist work to bold, graffiti-style art where the reader is confronted with the everyday minutia in stark and powerfully shocking beauty. In ‘Strange Days’, we have just such an example of her power and perceptiveness in Little girls lost in Strange Days/ and everyone’s tongues melting/ with acid chandeliers/ that grew purple toes in vineyards/ transformed the dusty stairs to a/ marble sweep of unwrapped sweets.
‘Tea Leaves’ quite literally caused me to inhale sharply with the desperate, albeit determined tone in Tear them with your naked hands so the/ fragmented fallout contaminates your fingers/ or place them in the bin with tea leaves/ and watch sepia seep in and transform them/ into sodden nostalgia. And her concluding lines: No, it must be/ painful and slow and messy./ There must be slow-motion/ fragments of all she gave/ floating like severed arms/ through the thickly complicit air/ and landing at your feet.
The title intrigued me, and the self-titled poem even more so. I was reading along with its jaunty little pace and then BAM! I was jerked up short, left breathless and loving it. Gill plays to her audience with an easy familiarity and her words can make you weep as quickly as they can make you rejoice. To me, that is the true test of a poet, and Gill O’ Halloran passes with flying colors.
This 7 Year Old Walks into a Bar is a thoroughly enjoyable read from open to close and I found myself going back time and time again to savor each taste. While I would be hard pressed to choose one favorite, I have no problem saying that this book has taken its place amongst my favorites.
This 7 Year Old Walks into a Bar by Gill O’ Halloran
Indigo Dreams Publishing £6.00
ISBN # 978-0-9561991-5-7 | 
