John F. Deane, Irish Poet and
Fiction Writer
Fiction Writer
Born Achill Island 1943; founded Poetry Ireland - the National Poetry
Society - and The Poetry Ireland Review, 1979; Published several collections
of poetry and some fiction; Won the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish
Poetry, the Marten Toonder Award for Literature and poetry prizes from
Italy and Romania. Elected Secretary-General of the European Academy of
Poetry in 1996. Shortlisted for both the T.S.Eliot prize and The Irish Times
Poetry Now Award, won residencies in Bavaria, Monaco and Paris. Latest
poetry collection “The Instruments of Art”, Carcanet 2005; “In Dogged
Loyalty”, essays on religious poetry, Columba 2006; latest fiction “The
Heather Fields and Other Stories,” Blackstaff Press 2007. Forthcoming
poetry collection, “A Little Book of Hours”, Carcanet 2008. He is a member
of Aosdána, the body established by the Arts Council to honour artists
“whose work had made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland”.
In 2007 the French Government honoured him by making him “Chevalier
de l’ordre des arts et des lettres”. In 2008 John F. Deane was visiting
scholar in the Burns Library of Boston College.
Society - and The Poetry Ireland Review, 1979; Published several collections
of poetry and some fiction; Won the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish
Poetry, the Marten Toonder Award for Literature and poetry prizes from
Italy and Romania. Elected Secretary-General of the European Academy of
Poetry in 1996. Shortlisted for both the T.S.Eliot prize and The Irish Times
Poetry Now Award, won residencies in Bavaria, Monaco and Paris. Latest
poetry collection “The Instruments of Art”, Carcanet 2005; “In Dogged
Loyalty”, essays on religious poetry, Columba 2006; latest fiction “The
Heather Fields and Other Stories,” Blackstaff Press 2007. Forthcoming
poetry collection, “A Little Book of Hours”, Carcanet 2008. He is a member
of Aosdána, the body established by the Arts Council to honour artists
“whose work had made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland”.
In 2007 the French Government honoured him by making him “Chevalier
de l’ordre des arts et des lettres”. In 2008 John F. Deane was visiting
scholar in the Burns Library of Boston College.
Contact:
johnfmdeane@gmail.com
johnfmdeane@gmail.com
“Taut, fluent sequence, beautifully wrought poems” -- Times Literary Supplement.
“In Deane’s version of the Anglo-Saxon The Dream of the Rood, he uses a very
effective mix of alliterative metre and terza-rima to produce the finest version of
Cynewulf’s poem that I have so far come across. The collection ends with The
Return, a longish autobiographical sequence which, with the threnodic and
beautiful When Giants Walked, impressed me as much as anything I have read in
recent months. This book (Christ, with Urban Fox) is well worth its modest price
and I know that I shall return to many of these poems for further and deeper
readings.” -- Vernon Scannell, Ambit
Speaking of The Dream of the Rood in Christ, with Urban Fox: “Deane’s
translation of the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon visionary poem is at the heart of
his book, and it is enormously impresssive, a vigorous reconsecration in words of a
famous but hitherto remote devotional work. Deane’s modern English version of
the Old English original makes it come alive with new relevance, in language fit
to compare with Pound’s translation of The Seafarer, offering nothing less than a
mood shift to a starker forgotten dimension of human experience” -- from World
Literature Today.
“In Deane’s version of the Anglo-Saxon The Dream of the Rood, he uses a very
effective mix of alliterative metre and terza-rima to produce the finest version of
Cynewulf’s poem that I have so far come across. The collection ends with The
Return, a longish autobiographical sequence which, with the threnodic and
beautiful When Giants Walked, impressed me as much as anything I have read in
recent months. This book (Christ, with Urban Fox) is well worth its modest price
and I know that I shall return to many of these poems for further and deeper
readings.” -- Vernon Scannell, Ambit
Speaking of The Dream of the Rood in Christ, with Urban Fox: “Deane’s
translation of the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon visionary poem is at the heart of
his book, and it is enormously impresssive, a vigorous reconsecration in words of a
famous but hitherto remote devotional work. Deane’s modern English version of
the Old English original makes it come alive with new relevance, in language fit
to compare with Pound’s translation of The Seafarer, offering nothing less than a
mood shift to a starker forgotten dimension of human experience” -- from World
Literature Today.
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