"I shall start by declaring I am Irish and rejoice in my wife Ruth and four children.

By virtue career circumstances’ and necessities I frequently have had to travel and live in different countries.  However, we have been happily residing in Bahrain since August 2009 and look forward to being here for a number of years to follow. My background is as a Trade Consultant and Advisor to Government Departments interested in creating incentive programmes for commercial development, and also as a Marketing Mentor for industries looking to promote their portfolio internationally. I have 20 years personal Directorial experience of founding and establishing, managing and leading international trading companies.

Currently, I am assisting the Bahrain Small & Medium Enterprises Society to identify and establish commercial structures and incentives necessary to create trade prospects for the future. In addition I help a small select number of restaurants with their wine lists and provide training for staff in their efforts to recommend wines as well as know how to pour and appreciate wine. I have an amateur’s enthusiasm for Classical History and certain Sciences, particularly Cosmology.

Over the past number of years I have been involved in amateur dramatics and appeared on tours throughout Ireland in a selection of dramas and comedy performances. Since arriving in Bahrain I have become a member of the Bahrain Writers Society, as well as the Bahrain Writers' Circle, and additionally joined the creative arts group Elham, while also being involved in dramatic productions for the Manama Theatre Company. I have hopes to establish a community oriented drama society where we can develop themes which have an emphasis upon the traditions of The Gulf and consequently shall require high levels of Bahraini input and participation.

Earlier this year I was privileged to become the Chairman of The Second Circle workshop on poetry appreciation and creation, and which operates under the auspices of The Bahrain Writers' Circle. With regard to my writings, they are inspired mostly by the extremes of finality, uncertainty, occasional unhappiness, emotional and physical pain and the joy that then comes from release. I think my poems have manifested themselves in terms which reflect an ongoing stimulation of sensations and passions, combined with abstract impressions of the real, imagined, sensed and available, and consequently they may expose the uncomfortable fears or lack of confidences we may sometimes have. Additionally,

I have attempted to face the directness of love, death, loss, ruin rejuvenation amongst a variety of themes and feelings which may drown or embarrass our relationship with the everyday world. I started writing when I was 18 but was too sensitive to criticism at the time and therefore gave it up for many years and only started again in my late 40’s whilst living in America and at a time when circumstances were very difficult. These inspired me to find expression through poetry because as a medium for communication, it allowed me to formulate feelings and ideas through entangled perceptions of frustration.

If I were to ponder what it may be about my work which emerges as a consequence, it  is that it is largely unembarrassed by the reality that we feel what we feel and see, and that no matter how much we may pretend to the contrary and thereby move and say and act in a manner which protects our veneer of personality, the truth is that we all occasionally, and sometimes unwittingly, allow ourselves to see, recognise, accept and run away from the truth of what is actually inside of us".

E: davidhollywood23@hotmail.com