John FitzGerald
It is rare to come across a debut from a poet whose voice is so assured and unfaltering. These lyrics are steeped in tradition, echoing Edward Thomas in places, and there are thrilling glints of a brave imagination: a cat’s tongue, in one poem, is “genital pink”.
— Seán Hewitt, The Irish Times
John FitzGerald was born in Cork in 1962. He won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2014 and was shortlisted for a Hennessy Award in 2015. A chapbook, First Cut, appeared in 2017, followed by Darklight, a limited edition, in 2019.
A recipient of a Key West Literary Bursary, John FitzGerald has lived in Dublin, London and Florence, and since 1995 has worked as University Librarian at University College Cork. He lives with his family on their farm in Carrigdarrery, County Cork. The Time Being was published by The Gallery Press in 2021 and was shortlisted for The Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize.
The Gallery Press published, in 2023, his translation of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire by Eileen O’Connell /The Lament for Art O’Leary which includes the Irish and, for the first time, Jack B Yeats’s monochrome drawings.
His second collection, Long Distance, published in April 2024, reveals the deepening impression of a poet who is both chronicler of all that fades and passes.
Links
Irish Examiner: John discusses his poetry and inspirations.
John FitzGerald titles
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Long Distance
€12.95 – €19.50 -
The Lament for Art O’Leary
€11.95 -
The Time Being
€11.95
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