Harry Clifton (born 1952) is an

Irish poet This is a list of notable poets with Wikipedia pages, who were born or raised in Ireland or hold Irish citizenship. Abbreviations for the languages of their writings: E: English; F: French; I: Irish (); L: Latin; R: Russian A–D * Adomnán ...

Biography

Clifton was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, where he was educated at

Blackrock College Blackrock College ( ga, Coláiste na Carraige Duibhe) is a voluntary secondary school, voluntary day school, day and boarding school, boarding Catholicism, Catholic secondary school for boys aged 13–18, in Williamstown, Blackrock, Dublin, Bl ...

and

University College, Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...

. He has 3 younger brothers and 2 sisters. After graduating, Clifton began an extended period of travel outside of Ireland. Many of his experiences from this time had major influence on his poetry because he believes the true home of the poet is 'not in a place, but in the language itself'. He has lived in places throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. He lectured at a teacher training college in Nigeria in the early 1970s. He worked as an aid administrator in Thailand for Indo-Chinese refugees in the 1980s. He lived in Italy's Abruzzi Mountains, Switzerland, England and Germany before settling in Paris for ten years. He was poet-in-residence at the Frost Place in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, an International Fellow at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, and a representative for Ireland at the International Writing Program in Iowa. He has held many teaching positions at universities, including

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

and

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

in France, and

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

and

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland ...

, in Ireland. In 2021, he was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He now lives in Dublin with his wife, Irish novelist

Deirdre Madden Deirdre Madden (born 20 August 1960) is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Career Madden was born in Toomebridge, County Antrim and was educated at St Mary's Grammar School, Magherafelt. She proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin (BA) and then to ...

, and teaches at

Work

He has published ten books of poetry, with work from his first four collections included in ''The Desert Route: Selected Poems 1973-88'', published in 1992 by the Gallery Press in Ireland and Bloodaxe Books in Britain, with a foreword by

Derek Mahon Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, lite ...

. His latest titles are ''The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass'' (2012), ''The Holding Centre: Selected Poems 1974-2004'' (2014), and ''Portobello Sonnets'' (2017), all published by Bloodaxe Books in Britain and Ireland, and by Wake Forest University Press in the United States. A new collection, ''Herod's Dispensations'', was published by both publishers in 2019. He wrote ''On the Spine of Italy: A Year in the Abruzzi'' (Macmillan, 1999), a prose work based on the year he spent in Italy. He recorded his life in Paris in ''Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994–2004'' (Wake Forest University Press, 2007). His poems have been translated into several European languages, with a French translation of selected poems, ''Le Canto d'Ulysse'', published in 1996. He also published a book of stories, ''Berkeley's Telephone & Other Fictions'' (Lilliput Press, 2000).

Critical reception

In his foreword to Harry Clifton's first volume of selected poems, ''The Desert Route'' (1992),

wrote: 'The poet has taken the world as his province... Quietly, without self-assertion, he liftonhas set himself to work in the highest registers. There must be three things in combination, I would suggest, before the poetry can happen: soul, song and formal necessity. Clifton has all three; he has chosen well from his four volumes; and this Selected Poems will place him among the poets who matter'. Reviewing ''Secular Eden'' (2007) in ''The Irish Times'', Fintan O'Toole wrote of Clifton's work: 'His is a universe of aftermaths, hauntings and returns, in which even God...dreams of becoming flesh again', asserting that his book 'captures an Irish voice that is utterly contemporary in its restless movement through time and space'.

Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín (, approximately ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, '' The South'', was published in 1990. '' The Blackwater Lightship'' was shortlis ...

, also writing in ''The Irish Times'', wrote of ''The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass'' (2012): 'There are moments when you hold your breath... and you sit up in pure delight... there are a number of poems in this book that will be read as long as any poems are read anywhere... The last poem, "Oweniny, Upper Reaches", filled with soft, haunting cadences and strange, ambiguous musings on solitude, memory and the meaning of things, is a masterpiece.' Commenting on Clifton's work as a whole,

C.K. Williams Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams (November 4, 1936 – September 20, 2015) was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. ''Flesh and Blood'' won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. ''Repair'' (1999) won ...

wrote: 'There is so much history in Harry Clifton's poems, so much geography, landscape, cityscape, repeopled precincts of the imagination, so much human drama and comedy; so many people, mythic, unlikely and hauntingly real. And all of it is limned with a masterful formal dexterity and an apparently limitless cultural curiosity.'

Awards

* 1981 :

Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award The Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award is an Irish poetry award for a collection of poems by an author who has not previously been published in collected form. It is confined to poets born on the island of Ireland, or who have Irish nationality, or are ...

* 2008 :

Irish Times Poetry Now Award The Poetry Now Award is an annual literary prize presented for the best single volume of poetry by an Irish poet. The €5,000 award was first given in 2005 (reduced to €2,500 in 2013) and is presented during annual Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown ...

for ''Secular Eden'' * 2012 : shortlisted for

for ''The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass'' * 2010-2013: Fifth

Ireland Professor of Poetry The position of Ireland Professor of Poetry is an academic chair, jointly administered in trust by Queen's University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council. The post ...

* member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association of artists. It was created in 1981 on the initiative of a group of writers with support from the country's Arts Council. Membership, which is by invitation from current member ...

Publications

Poetry

*''The Walls of Carthage'', Dublin: The Gallery Press, 1977 *''The Office of the Salt Merchant'', Dublin: The Gallery Press, 1979 *''Comparative Lives'', Dublin: The Gallery Press, 1982 *''The Liberal Cage'', Oldcastle, Co. Meath: The Gallery Press, 1988 *''The Desert Route: Selected Poems 1973-1988'', Oldcastle, Co. Meath: The Gallery Press, 1992 ; Newcastle upon Tyne:

Bloodaxe Books Bloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specializing in poetry. History Bloodaxe Books was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Bloodaxe moved its editorial office to Northumbe ...

, 1992 ; *''Night Train Through the Brenner'', Oldcastle, Co. Meath: The Gallery Press, 1994 *''Le Canto d'Ulysse'', ed. Nicole Ollier with various translators, Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 1996 *''Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994-2004'', Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2007 *''The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass'', Tarset:

, 2012 ; Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2012 *''The Holding Centre: Selected Poems 1974-2004'', Tarset:

, 2014 ; Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2012 *''Portobello Sonnets'', Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2012 ; Hexham:

, 2017 *''Herod's Dispensations'', Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2019 ; Hexham:

, 2019

Fiction

*''Berkeley's Telephone & Other Fictions'', Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2000

Non-fiction

*''On the Spine of Italy: A Year in the Abruzzi'', London: Macmillan, 1999

References

External links

Harry Clifton Poems in ''Qualm''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clifton, Harry 1952 births University of Iowa people Irish poets Aosdána members Honorary Fellows of Trinity College Dublin Living people International Writing Program alumni Alumni of University College Dublin People educated at Blackrock College