Is It Safe To Come Out Yet? is a poetry collection by Denis Mockler on the experience of growing up gay in 1980s Ireland.

Mockler told GCN, “It’s about growing up gay in rural Ireland in a very Catholic family and not knowing what it meant to be attracted to the same sex. As a teenager, I was frightened to tell anyone. I thought I could pray it away”.

The poems in the collection cover the times in Mockler’s life when he was going to gay bars and looking for love, then finding love and having to hide it through a breakdown and recovery.

“The relationship was challenging and we kept it mostly secret. That was the late ’90s,” he remembered.

However, Is It Safe To Come Out Yet? isn’t solely about romantic love; it also explores friendship and the importance of platonic connections. “Many of the poems are about friends I made along the way,” said Mockler.

Mockler’s collection also tackles the problem of how Catholicism and LGBTQ+ identities can coexist, by penning poems on “religion and finding my place there”, according to Mockler.

“I felt very isolated because of my secret,” he shared. The poet also described having feelings of shame and guilt associated with his attraction to the same sex as a teenager due to the stigma of homosexuality or otherness.

“I tried to pray away my sexuality. My mental health broke down. It was a very challenging time and I was 21 before I really felt safe to talk about it with others.”

In a heartwarming turnaround, Mockler, who once felt unsafe talking about his gay identity with anyone, is now sharing it with all who come across the poetry collection. His sexuality once bred isolation, but now it invites connection and collaboration through this fabulous piece of work.

The self-published poetry collection by Denis Mockler, Is It Safe To Come Out Yet?, is available now.