Irish poet (born 1939)
Michael Longley ,
CBE (born 27 July 1939,
Belfast, Northern Ireland ), is an Irish poet.
Life and career
One of twin boys,
[1] Michael Longley was born in
Belfast , Northern Ireland, to English parents, Longley was educated at the
Royal Belfast Academical Institution , and subsequently read
Classics at
Trinity College, Dublin , where he edited
Icarus . He was the
Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007 to 2010, a cross-border academic post set up in 1998, previously held by
John Montague ,
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill , and
Paul Durcan . He was succeeded in 2010 by
Harry Clifton .
[2] North American editions of Longley's work are published by
Wake Forest University Press .
Over 50 years, he has spent much time in Carrigskeewaun, County Mayo, which has inspired much of his poetry.
[3]
His wife,
Edna , is a critic on modern Irish and British poetry.
[4] They have three children. Their daughter is artist
Sarah Longley . An
atheist , Longley describes himself as a "sentimental" disbeliever.
[5]
On 14 January 2014, he participated in the
BBC Radio 3 series The Essay – Letters to a Young Poet . Taking
Rainer Maria Rilke 's classic text
Letters to a Young Poet as inspiration, leading poets wrote a letter to a protege.
[6] Longley has provided readings of his poetry for the
Irish Poetry Reading Archive (UCD) .
His twin brother, Peter, died in 2013/14. Longley dedicated the second half of The Stairwell (2014), his tenth collection, to him.
[1]
Awards and honours
Gorse Fires (1991) won the
Whitbread Poetry Prize . The Weather in Japan (2000) won the
T.S. Eliot Prize and the
Hawthornden Prize .
[7] It also brought him the inaugural Yakamochi Medal in 2018.
[8] He holds honorary doctorates from
Queen's University Belfast (1995) and
Trinity College, Dublin (1999) and was the 2001 recipient of the
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry .
[9] Longley was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
[10]
Longley won a 2011
London Awards for Art and Performance . His collection A Hundred Doors won the
Poetry Now Award in September 2012.
[11]
His 2014 collection, The Stairwell , won the 2015 International
Griffin Poetry Prize .
[12] In 2015, he received the
Ulster Tatler Lifetime Achievement Award.
[13] He was awarded the
PEN Pinter Prize in 2017. The Chair of the judges,
Don Paterson , said: "For decades now his effortlessly lyric and fluent poetry has been wholly suffused with the qualities of humanity, humility and compassion, never shying away from the moral complexity that comes from seeing both sides of an argument."
[14]
In 2015 Longley was elected a Freeman of the City of Belfast.
[15] In 2018, he was made an honorary fellow of
Trinity College Dublin .
[16]
List of works
Longley reading his poetry at the Corrymeela Peace Center in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, July 2012
Ten Poems (1965), Belfast: Festival Publications
Secret Marriages: Nine Short Poems (1968), Manchester: Phoenix Press
No Continuing City (1969), London: Macmillan: New York: Dufour Editions
Lares (1972) Woodford Green, London: Poet & Printer
An Exploded View (1973), London: Victor Gollancz
Fishing in the Sky: Love Poems (1975), London: Poet & Printer
Man Lying on a Wall (1976), London: Victor Gollancz; (1977) New York: Transatlantic Arts
The Echo Gate (1979) London: Seeker & Warburg; New York: Random House
Selected Poems 1963–1980 (1981), Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Patchwork (1981), Dublin: The Gallery Press
Poems 1963–1983 (1985), Edinburgh: The Salamander Press; Dublin: The Gallery Press; (1987) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press,
Gorse Fires (1991), London: Seeker & Warburg; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Baucis and Philemon: After Ovid (1993), London: Poet & Printer
Birds and Flowers: Poems (1994), Edinburgh: Morning Star
Tuppeny Stung: Autobiographical Chapters (1994), Belfast: Lagan Press
The Ghost Orchid (1995), London: Jonathan Cape; (1996) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Ship of the Wind (1997), Dublin: Poetry Ireland
Broken Dishes (1998), Newry, Northern Ireland: Abbey Press
Selected Poems (1998), London: Jonathan Cape; (1999) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Out of the Cold (1999), Newry, Northern Ireland: Abbey Press
The Weather in Japan (2000), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Cenotaph of Snow: Sixty Poems About War (2003), London: Enitharmon Press
Snow Water (2004), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
The Rope-Makers (2005), London: Enitharmon Press
Collected Poems (2006), London: Jonathan Cape; (2007), Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
A Jovial Hullabaloo (2008), London: Enitharmon Press
A Hundred Doors (2011), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
The Stairwell (2014), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
One Wide Expanse (2015), Dublin: University College Dublin Press
Sea Asters (2015), published by Andrew J Moorhouse – Fine Press Poetry
The Dipper's Range (2016), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
Twelve Poems (2016), Thame, Oxford: Clutag Press
Angel Hill (2017), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Sidelines: Selected Prose (2017), London: Enitharmon Press
Ghetto (2019), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
The Candlelight Master (2020), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
Homer's Octopus (2020), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
Metamorphoses (2022), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
Canticle (2022), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
The Slain Birds (2022), London: Jonathan Cape
Birds & Flowers (2024), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
See also
References
^
a
b
Kellaway, Kate (3 August 2014).
"The Stairwell review – Michael Longley's shortcuts to the heart" . The Guardian . Retrieved 11 March 2022 .
^
"Longley new professor of poetry" . bbc.co.uk . 7 September 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2020 .
^ Viney, Michael (17 July 2009).
"An imagination nourished by the landscape of the west" . www.irishtimes.com . Retrieved 9 August 2020 .
^
Wake Forest University Press
Archived 10 March 2009 at the
Wayback Machine
^ O'Brien, Sean (9 April 2011).
"A Hundred Doors by Michael Longley – review | Michael Longley's reverence for the living and the dead is as evident as ever" . The Guardian . Retrieved 26 July 2020 .
^
"The Essay – Letters to a Young Poet" , bbc.co.uk, 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
^
"Michael Longley" . Poetry Foundation . Poetry Foundation. 16 January 2018. Retrieved 26 July 2020 . {{
cite web }}
: CS1 maint: others (
link )
^
"Ist Yakamochi Medal Award Decision" . www.koshibun.jp . Retrieved 8 August 2020 .
^
Kennedy, Maev (24 April 2001).
"Medal crowns Belfast poet's renaissance" . www.theguardian.com . Retrieved 8 August 2020 .
^
"No. 59446" .
The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2010. p. 7.
^ Wallace, Arminta (8 September 2012).
"Michael Longley wins €5,000 poetry prize" .
The Irish Times .
^ Doyle, Martin (5 June 2015).
"Michael Longley wins Griffin International Poetry Prize" . www.irishtimes.com . Retrieved 8 August 2020 .
^
"Poet Michael Longley's lifetime achievement gong at Ulster Tatler awards" .
Belfast Telegraph . 18 September 2015. Retrieved 8 August 2020 .
^ Kean, Danuta (1 June 2017).
"Michael Longley wins PEN Pinter Prize for unflinching unswerving poetry" . The Guardian .
^ Publisher's note Angel Hill .
^
"TRINITY MONDAY 2018 - FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS" . www.tcd.ie . Trinity College Dublin. 9 April 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2022 .
Further reading
Allen, Michael, ed. Options: The Poetry of Michael Longley , Éire-Ireland 10.4 (1975): pp. 129–35.
Allen Randolph, Jody. "Michael Longley, February 2010". Close to the Next Moment: Interviews from a Changing Ireland . Manchester: Carcanet, 2010.
Allen Randolph, Jody and Douglas Archibald, eds. Special Issue on Michael Longley . Colby Quarterly 39.3 (September 2003).
Brearton, Fran. Reading Michael Longley . Bloodaxe, 2006.
Clyde, Tom, ed. Special Issue on Michael Longley . Honest Ulsterman 110 (Summer 2001).
Peacock, Alan J. and Kathleen Devine, eds. The Poetry of Michael Longley: Ulster Editions and Monographs 10 . Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England: Colin Smythe, 2000.
Robertson, Robin, ed. Love Poet, Carpenter: Michael Longley at Seventy . London: Enitharmon Press, 2009.
Russell, Richard Rankin. Poetry and Peace: Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, and Northern Ireland . South Bend, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press , 2010.
External links
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