PATRICK DEELEY was born in east Co. Galway in 1953 and is at present Principal of a large primary school in Dublin. "I began writing in my early twenties," he says, "attending workshops in the Grapevine Arts Centre. Nowadays I'm trying to weave together my rural and urban experiences, bring the scarecrow to the city -- and vice versa." To date, Dedalus has published four collections of his poems, the most recent being Turane: The Hidden Village (1995) and Decoding Samara (2000). The Bones of Creation is published in April 2008. He has also published two books for younger writers with the O'Brien Press.

'He proves that he is capable of concentrated short poems as well as finely controlled long poems, and there are moments when he moves towards an atavistic identification with the lives of untamed creatures'— Brendan Kennelly, The Sunday Independent

'Patrick Deeley is one of those remarkable poets for whom the raw immensity of the rural will, one suspects, always hold the ultimate imaginative fascination and whose poems are reflections of a gifted and gifting sense of wonder and curiosity'— Fred Johnston, Books Ireland