Biography
Micheal O’Siadhail* was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1947. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, Trinity College Dublin, and the University of Oslo. A full-time writer, he has published eighteen collections of poetry.
The Five Quintets received the Conference on Christianity and Literature’s 2019 book of the year award. In 1998 he was awarded the Marten Toonder prize for Literature, and in 1982 an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry.
His collections of poetry are:
Desire (Baylor University Press 2023), Testament (Baylor University Press 2022), The Five Quintets (Baylor University Press 2018), One Crimson Thread (Baylor University Press 2017, Bloodaxe Books 2015), Collected Poems (Baylor University Press 2018, Bloodaxe Books 2013), Tongues (Bloodaxe Books 2010), Globe (Bloodaxe Books 2007), Love Life (Bloodaxe Books 2005), The Gossamer Wall (Bloodaxe Books and Time Being Books 2002), Poems 1975-1995: Hail! Madam Jazz and A Fragile City (Bloodaxe Books 1999), Our Double Time (Bloodaxe Books 1998), A Fragile City (Bloodaxe Books 1995), Hail! Madam Jazz: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 1992), The Chosen Garden (1990), The Image Wheel (1985), Springnight (1983), Belonging (1982), Rungs of Time (1980), The Leap Year (1978).
A book of essays, Say but the Word: Poetry as Vision and Voice, was published by Hinds Books in 2015.
His poem suites, The Naked Flame and Summerfest and Earlsfort Suite were commissioned and set to music for performance and broadcasting.
He has given poetry readings and broadcast extensively in Ireland, Britain, Europe and North America and Japan.
He has been a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Among his many academic works are Learning Irish (Yale University Press 1988) and Modern Irish (Cambridge University Press 1989). He was a member of the Arts Council of the Republic of Ireland (1988-93) and of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Relations (1989-97), a founder member of Aosdána (Academy of distinguished Irish artists) and a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. He was the founding chairman of ILE (Ireland Literature Exchange). He received an honorary degree, doctor of letters, from the University of Manitoba and in 2018, from the University of Aberdeen in 2018 and from Trinity College Dublin in 2022.
*Micheal O’Siadhail: Pronounced mee-hawl o’sheel