John F. Deane

Born Achill Island 1943; founded Poetry Ireland - the National Poetry Society - and The Poetry Ireland Review, 1979; Published several collections of poetry and some fiction; Won the O'Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry, the Marten Toonder Award for Literature and poetry prizes from Italy and Romania. Shortlisted for both the T.S.Eliot prize and The Irish Times Poetry Now Award, won residencies in Bavaria, Monaco and Paris. His poetry collection "The Instruments of Art" came from Carcanet in 2005; "In Dogged Loyalty", essays on religious poetry, Columba 2006, and "From The Marrow-Bone", also from Columba, 2008; latest fiction "The Heather Fields and Other Stories," Blackstaff Press 2007. Latest poetry collection, "A Little Book of Hours", Carcanet 2008, of which David Morley wrote, in Poetry Review: "These are beautiful, solemn, gravid poems, best read aloud for, like John Tavener, Deane has to be heard to be believed". He is a member of Aosdána, the body established by the Arts Council to honour artists "whose work had made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland". In 2007 the French Government honoured him by making him "Chevalier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres". In 2008 he was visiting scholar in the Burns Library of Boston College. In October 2010, a new novel, "Where No Storms Come", was published by Blackstaff Press and in December Columba Press will publish a book of essays, "The Works of Love". Next poetry collection, "Eye of the Hare", will come from Carcanet in June 2011.