Pat Boran

PAT BORAN was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin. He has published seven collections of poetry: The Unwound Clock (1990), which won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, Familiar Things (1993), The Shape of Water (1996), As the Hand, the Glove (2001), The Next Life (2011), Waveforms: Bull Island Haiku (2015), which also features the author's photographs of this celebrated Dublin landmark, Then Again (2019) and, most recently, Hedge School (2024). New and Selected Poems, with an introduction by the late Dennis O'Driscoll, appeared from Salt Publishing (UK) in 2005 and was reissued by Dedalus Press in 2007. A Man Is Only As Good: A Pocket Selected Poems, was published in 2017. His most recent collection of poems is Hedge School (2024). As well as these full-length collections, Boran has also published a number of illustrated pocket-poems, based on his ongoing series of poetry films: of these The Statues of Emo Court (2021) and Building the Ark (2022) are generally available.

In addition to poetry, Pat Boran has published a collection of short stories, Strange Bedfellows (1991), and his short fiction for children includes All the Way from China (1999), a finalist for the Bisto Book of the Year Award.

His non-fiction publications include the popular writers' handbook The Portable Creative Writing Workshop (various editions) and A Short History of Dublin (2000). His memoir The Invisible Prison: Scenes from an Irish Childhood, was published to considerable acclaim in 2009 and reissued in 2018. It is also available in an Italian edition, Un'infanzia irlandese, from Edizioni Kolibris.

A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review and presenter of The Poetry Programme on Ireland's RTÉ Radio 1, Boran has edited numerous anthologies, including Wingspan: A Dedalus Sampler (2006), Flowing, Still: Irish Poets on Irish Poetry (2009), The Bee-Loud Glade: A Living Anthology of Irish Poetry (2011), Shine On: Irish Writers for Shine (2011), an anthology of some of the best known names in Irish poetry and fiction in support of those affected by mental ill health. Recent anthologies include (with co-editor Gerard Smyth) If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song, (with Eugene O'Connell) The Deep Heart's Core: Irish Poets Revisit A Touchstone Poem, (with Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi) Writing Home: The 'New Irish' Poets, and the pocket anthology The Word Ark: A Pocket Book of Animal Poems (2020). His most recent anthology project is Local Wonders: Poems of Our Immediate Surrounds (2021).

In 2007 Pat Boran was elected to the membership of Aosdána, the Irish academy of artists and writers, and in 2008 he received the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award of the University of St Thomas, St Paul, MN. Since the arrival of Covid-19 he began making short poetry films which to date have been selected for festivals in more than a dozen countries and can be seen on YouTube and on the author's website.