The Bones of Creation

PATRICK DEELEY was born in County Galway in 1953. His most recent poetry collection is The End of the World (Dedalus Press, 2019), for which he won the 2019 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award. This collection was also shortlisted for the 2020 Farmgate National Poetry Award. His other books with Dedalus Press are: Groundswell: New and Selected Poems (2013), The Bones of Creation (2008), Decoding Samara (2000), Turane: The Hidden Village (1995), Names For Love (1990) and Intimate Strangers (1986). Patrick Deeley served on the Council of Poetry Ireland from 1984 to 1989. He was awarded the 2014 Dermot Healy International Poetry Prize, the 2015 WOW2 Prize and a Patrick Kavanagh Merit Award in 1981. His poems have appeared in many leading international journals over the past forty years, including London Magazine, The Rialto, Arc, Atlanta Review, Chapman, Westerly and Irish Pages. His work has been translated to French, Italian, Spanish, Ukranian and other languages. Le Ossa della Creazione was published by Edizioni Kolibris in 2010, and Territoire / Territory appeared from Editions Alidades in 2011. ‘Woodman’ was chosen as one of ‘Ireland’s Favourite Poems’ following an Irish Times survey in 1999. The RTE Radio documentary series, The Poet and the Place, dedicated a programme to his work, as did RTE TV’s Nationwide and The Poet’s Eye. Patrick Deeley’s books for children include The Lost Orchard (O’Brien Press, 2001), winner of the Eilís Dillon Award. His critically acclaimed, best-selling memoir, The Hurley Maker’s Son (Doubleday Ireland, 2016), was chosen as their Book Choice by The Irish Times, Eason Books, The Pat Kenny Show and numerous other outlets. It featured on RTE’s Today programme and BBC Radio 4’s Midweek, as well as being shortlisted for the 2016 Irish Non-fiction Book of the Year Award. Patrick Deeley has read at many festivals including Bloom, Clifden Arts, Cuirt, Dublin Book Festival, Galway Arts, Glór, Kilkenny Arts, Oulu Music Festival in Finland, South Bank London, and a number of venues in the United States. He has led poetry workshops throughout Ireland for both children and adults, conducted lectures for post-graduate students on literary exchange programmes at TCD, and his ‘Poetry in the Classroom’, based on poem-making with children in Ballyfermot – where he worked as teacher and later as administrative principal – received Department of Education commendation and was published in ‘The Magic Emerald’ 1^st to 6^th Standards by CJ Fallon. (See also www.patrickdeeley.com)