Harry Clifton named Ireland's Professor of Poetry 2010–2013

ILE would like to congratulate Harry Clifton who has been appointed Ireland's next Professor of Poetry, a position he will hold until 2013. The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, made the announcement yesterday evening at an event held at Newman House, Dublin. Over the next three years, Mr Clifton will teach at three universities, Queen's University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, for one academic term a year. 

Mr Clifton takes over the position from Michael Longley. Previous Professors of Poetry are John Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul Durcan. The Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust was set up in 1998 and is jointly held between the three universities, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Every three years a poet of honour and distinction is chosen to represent the Chair as Ireland's Professor of Poetry. As well as teaching commitments, while in residence, the poet gives informal workshops or readings, spends time working with students and performing outreach work and makes one formal presentation a year, usually in the form of a lecture.

Born in Dublin in 1952, Harry Clifton has spent most of his life living abroad, in Asia, Africa and Europe. His collections of poetry are The Walls of Carthage (1977), Office of the Salt Merchant (1979), Comparative Lives (1982), The Liberal Cage (1988), The Dessert Route, Selected Poems, 1973-1988 (1992), Night Train through the Brenner (1996), God in France (2003), and Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks, 1994-2004 (2007). His diary of a year in the Abruzzo Mountains, On the Spine of Italy, was published in 1999 and his collection of short stories, published in 2000, is titled Berkeley's Telephone. He has received the Irish Times Poetry Now Award, the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and two Arts Council Bursaries in Literature. Harry Clifton is a member of Aosdána, has represented Ireland at the Iowa International Writers' Program and has been Poet-in-Residence at The Frost Place, New Hampshire. He is married to Irish novelist Deirdre Madden.

Speaking after the announcement was made, Mr Clifton said, 'To succeed Michael Longley, one of the most admired poets in the language itself, let alone the country, is especially wonderful.'