About the Book:

Poetry Introductions 1 brings to public attention five new exciting poetic voices from the north of Ireland.

About the Author:

Chris Arthur’s work represents a vigorous intellectual engagement with worlds around him: the natural, the political and the social. Whether writing about nature. The inner emotional landscape, or the larger forces outside, he brings to his work a discursive yet committed passion.
Chris Arthur was born in Belfast in 1955. Educated at Friends’ School, Lisburn, Campbell College, Belfast and the University of Edinburgh. He currently lectures at the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Adrian Fox strikes a more personal lyric note with a remarkable series of elegies. Yet along with these moving poems of loss, he writes with an artistic and moral commitment to the craft of poetry. Scrupulously honest, he approaches his subjects — childhood, morality, violent conflict — with an emotional delicacy and restraint.
Adrian Fox was born in Kent. Studied creative writing under the late James Simmons. He currently works as Verbal Arts Officer at the Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown.

Technically assured and methodical, Matt Kirkham displays an acute critical intelligence, exploring and imaginatively re-creating the verities underlying the everyday. Whether it’s writing about his childhood in England or zen-like properties of Carlingford, Kirkham’s poem intrigue and beguile.
Matt Kirkham was born in Luton. He was educated at Luton Sixth Form College and Cambridge University. He currently lives in the Ards peninsula and works as a teacher.

Off-beat, wry and sardonic, Maria McManus writes with a striking intimacy about family, belonging and place. At the core of her work are poems about childhood. Clear-eyed and yet affectionate, they bring an authentic working-class sensibility to her work, shot through with social and political insight.
Maria McManus was born in Enniskillen in 1964. Educated at University of Ulster and Queen’s University, Belfast. An Occupational Therapist, she currently works in the health service.

Francis O’Hare’s poems sing with an exhilarating sense of the modern and postmodern. Imbued with the traditions of the Northern Irish lyric, his work is packed with references to cinematic and pop culture. While playful, the poems accurately, and sometimes painfully, render the imaginative hinterlands of life as it is lived today.
Francis O’Hare was born in Newry, Co. Down, 1970. Educated at Queen’s University, Belfast, he currently works as a teacher in the city.