Kevin Graham
For years now Kevin Graham’s formal skill and emotional power have marked him out as a rare poetic talent. — Ciarán O’Rourke
Kevin Graham lives with his family in Dublin and works in risk, specializing in environmental liability. He graduated from Dublin City University with a BSc in Applied Computational Linguistics.
His poems have appeared widely in print as well as on radio and he has received Literature Bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland. He has published an e-chapbook with Smithereens Press and a pamphlet, First Impressions, with Ragpicker Poetry. His debut collection, The Lookout Post, published by The Gallery Press in 2023, has been shortlisted for the Pollard Prize.
The Lookout Post
Winner of the 2024 Southword Debut Poetry Collection Award
The Lookout Post, Kevin Graham’s first collection, is a book of uncommon poise and range. It includes harrowing accounts of illness, a suicide, and joyous celebrations of fatherhood and family life. Surprising revelations — ‘And it strikes me there is only / the moment’ (‘The Knack’) and ‘It’s both enough and never enough’ (‘Weathering’) — match original detail — ‘the worried frown // knitted on his brow didn’t drop a stitch’ (‘The Lesson’).
Whether it’s in the extended sequence, ‘Sketches’, which draws on the letters of Van Gogh, or shorter poems which pay homage to Wendell Berry, Zinedine Zidane and Derek Mahon or ruminate on Elizabeth Bishop’s sojourn in Ireland, The Lookout Post seamlessly melds the ordinary and the literary. As the book’s title might suggest this is a collection of acutely observed reflection by an outstanding new and assured voice.
