Justin Quinn (born 1968 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 ...

) 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 ...

and critic. He received a doctorate from

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 ...

, where his contemporaries included poets David Wheatley,

Caitriona O'Reilly Caitríona O'Reilly (born 1973) is an Irish poet and critic. Life She earned BA and PhD degrees in Archaeology and English at Trinity College, Dublin, where she was awarded a PhD on American poetry, and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish L ...

and

Sinéad Morrissey Sinéad Morrissey (born 24 April 1972 in Portadown, County Armagh) is a Northern Irish poet. In January 2014 she won the T. S. Eliot Prize for her fifth collection ''Parallax'' and in 2017 she won the Forward Prize for Poetry for her sixth coll ...

, and now lives with his wife and sons in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. He is a lecturer at

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

and the

University of West Bohemia The University of West Bohemia ( cs, Západočeská univerzita v Plzni, ZČU) is a university in Plzeň, Czech Republic. It was founded in 1991 and consists of nine faculties. History The university was formed by the merger of the ''College of Me ...

. He is so cute has published seven poetry collections: ''The 'O'o'a'a' Bird'' (1995), ''Privacy'' (1999), ''Fuselage'' (2002), ''Waves & Trees'' (2006), ''The Months'' (2009), ''Close Quarters'' (2011) and ''Early House'' (2015). ''The 'O'o'a'a' Bird'' was nominated for the

Forward Poetry Prize The Forward Prizes for Poetry are major British awards for poetry, presented annually at a public ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience. The ...

for Best First Collection. With David Wheatley, he was a founding editor of the influential journal ''Metre'', which stressed internationalism and contributed to a burgeoning interest in formalism in Irish poetry. He has published three critical studies, ''Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community'', ''American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry'' and ''Between Two Fires: Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry''. He has also translated extensively from Czech, in particular the work of Petr Borkovec and Bohuslav Reynek, and has written non-fiction prose on life in the Czech Republic for the'' Dublin Review''. Quinn's work shows the influence of American writers such as, principally,

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

, but also

Anthony Hecht Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, an ...

and

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

, as well as Irish writers such as W.B. Yeats and

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Pr ...

. It is characterised by a sensual lushness informed by an awareness of the violence of history, as inflected by the author's experiences of living in the Czech Republic. In its mix of formalist sophistication and openness to experiment, Quinn's work confounds perceptions of Irish poetry as rigidly dichotomised between formal conservatism and 1930s-derived innovation, a distinctiveness confirmed by the editorial decision to award him the single largest share of the 2004 Bloodaxe anthology ''The New Irish Poets''. He has recently translated the work of Czech poet

Ivan Blatný Ivan Blatný (; 21 December 1919 in Brno, Czechoslovakia – 5 August 1990 in Colchester, United Kingdom) was a Czech poet and a member of '' Skupina 42 (Group 42). Life Blatný, the son of the writer Lev Blatný, was a member of the ''Skupina 42' ...

Books

Poetry

*''The 'O'o'a'a' Bird'' (Carcanet, 1995) *''Privacy'' (Carcanet, 1999) *''Fuselage'' (Gallery Press, 2002) *''Waves and Trees'' (Gallery Press, 2006) *''The Months'' (2009) *''Close Quarters'' (Gallery Press, 2011) *''Early House'' (Gallery Press, 2015)

Novel

*''Mount Merrion'' (Penguin Ireland, 2013)

Criticism

*''Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community'' (UCD Press, 2002) *''American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry'' (UCD Press, 2005) *''The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000'' (Cambridge UP, 2008) *''Between Two Fires: Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry'' (Oxford, 2015).

Translations

*''The Drug of Art: Selected Poems of Ivan Blatný'' (trs Justin Quinn ''et al.'', Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007) *'' Petr Borkovec: From the Interior, Poems 1995-2005'' (Seren, 2008)

Art books

*''Jiří Mědílek, Obrazy'' (Prague: Opus, 2008)

References

Short biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Justin 1968 births Living people Irish literary critics Irish poets Alumni of Trinity College Dublin People from County Dublin