JAMES McCabe was born in Dublin in 1966; he was awarded a Double First Degree in English Language & Literature from UCD. He has won the British Council Millennium award, was shortlisted for the Hennessy Prize and was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1997. He is a teacher of English and many of his poems have been published in Ireland and abroad. In 1999 The Dedalus Press published his debut collection, The White Battlefield of Silence. The poems in this first collection reflect his belief in the druidic funtion of poetry while a long poem focuses on World War II to explore the futility of violence and the mystery of suffering.