S T R O K E S T O W N
i n t e r n a t i o n a l
P O E T R Y  F E S T I V A L  2 0 1 1
Féile Idirnáisiúnta Filíochta Bhéal Áth na mBuillí  

Matthew Barton has published two full-length collections, the latest being Vessel (Brodie Poets 2009). He has won many awards including second prize in the National Poetry Competition and an Art’s Council Writer’s Award. He teaches creative writing at Bristol University, Oxford University (summer school), and in many secondary schools.

Jo Bell is a former Cheshire Poet Laureate and is Writer in Residence at Royal Derby Hospital. A boat-dweller and former archaeologist, she is about to embark on a project with storyteller Jo Blake, travelling the river Nene and writing about it. She is the Director of National Poetry Day in the UK, and co-programmer for the Ledbury Poetry Festival 2011.

John Carty is one of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians and was awarded TG4’s Traditional Musician of the Year in 2003. Among other recordings he has produced two solo banjo and three solo fiddle albums as well as many collaborative ones - including Pathway to the Well, 2007, with Matt Molloy and Arty McGlynn. His latest album is Meadbh - The Crimson Path (Racket Records 2010) with the poet Ann Joyce.

Heather Clyne is from Glen Finnan, at the heart of the Scottish Highlands. Having travelled throughout the world she has decided, just like her fellow shoe connoisseur Dorothy, that there is no place like home. She is currently in the third year of a degree in Gaelic Language and Culture at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye.

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, and now lives in Cambridge, England. Her collection A Fold in the Map is published by Salt.  Her next collection, The Tempest Prognosticator comes out from Salt in the UK in July 2011 and Random’s Umuzi imprint in South Africa later in the year.  www.isobeldixon.com

Martin Dyar grew up in Swinford in County Mayo. His poetry has received a number of major literary awards, including the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2009, the Raftery Award in 2006, and the Strokestown International Poetry Prize in 2001. He is a featured poet in the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series, and the recipient of an Arts Council Bursary Award in Literature.

Susanne Ehrhardt grew up in Germany.  She is a medical doctor.  Her poems have been published in magazines, including the London Review of Books.  A selection appeared in New Chatto Poets II, and in the 2008 Templar anthology.

Peter Fallon is a poet and founder of the leading Irish publishing house, The Gallery Press. His own collections of poems include The Speaking Stones (1978), Winter Work (1983), The News and Weather (1987), Eye to Eye (1992) and his selected poems, News of the World, (1993 and 1998).The Georgics of Virgil, a translation, was published in September 2004. In 1990 he edited, with Derek Mahon, The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry. Peter Fallon received the 1993 O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the Irish American Cultural Institute. In 2003 he was elected to Aosdána. He lives with his family in Loughcrew in County Meath, Ireland.

Ed Frankel divides his time between rural Northern California and Los Angeles. He has won a number of poetry awards including the New American Press prize for his chapbook, People of the Air. When the Catfish Are In Bloom: Requiem for John Fahey, was nominated for the California Book Award. Ed teaches at UCLA.

Patsy Hanly is one of the most respected flute players in Irish traditional music, and reckoned to be among the greatest exponents of the Roscommon style - powerful music with great drive. A former senior all-Ireland flute winner, he has a vast knowledge of the music, and has guested on many albums over the years.

James Harpur has had four poetry collections published by Anvil Press: A Vision of Comets (1993), The Monk’s Dream (1996), Oracle Bones (2001) and The Dark Age (2007), which won the 2009 Michael Hartnett Award. Anvil have also published his Fortune’s Prisoner, a translation of the poems of Boethius. He is poetry editor of the Temenos Academy Review and a former editor of Southword, Ireland’s premier poetry ezine. He has held poetry residencies at the Munster Literature Centre and Exeter Cathedral, and has facilitated workshops for many years, including at the universities of Lancaster and the West of England, and at the Arvon Foundation. As well as the Michael Hartnett Award, James has won a number of other prizes and bursaries for his poetry, including the 1995 British National Poetry Competition.

Martainn Mac an t-Saoir (Martin MacIntyre in English) originates from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides but grew up in Glasgow. In 1992 he won the first William Ross Prize for Gaelic Writing and  in 2003 the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award for his book, Ath-Aithne. His novel Gymnippers Diciadain  was shortlisted for the Saltire Society Book of the Year in 2005. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two children.

Aonghas Macneacail was born on the Isle of Skye. He has published several collections of poems, mostly in Gaelic with parallel English translations, including An Seachnadh/The Avoiding (1986) and Oideachadh Ceart/A Proper Schooling (1996), the latter winning the 1997 Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. A collection of poems in English, Rock and Water, appeared in 1990. His latest book is a collection of Gaelic poems, Laoidh an Donais Oig/Hymn to a Young Demon (2007).
Over a period of 30 years, he has held creative writing fellowships with various community and educational bodies, including the Gaelic College in Skye, Brownsbank (Hugh MacDiarmid's last home), Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities, and, most recently, in eight Dumfries and Galloway schools. The latter has resulted in a substantial anthology of pupils' writing. In 1993 he wrote a four-part documentary series on Gaelic culture for Scottish Television and Driven West, a five-part drama for BBC Radio Scotland, and has recently worked, as a co-writer, on the feature film Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle. 

Ryno Morrison is from the Hebridean island of Lewis, although he spent much of his life in South Uist.  From an early age, Ryno has had a deep involvement with the arts, culture and Gaelic language  sector in Scotland. He has a special interest in village poetry, a type of rhyming verse that was prevalent in the Highlands and Islands. Ryno is currently based in Inverness with his wife and family.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin where she is an associate professor of English Literature specialising in the Renaissance. She is a founder of the literary magazine Cyphers. She has published ten collections of poetry. Her first, Acts and Monuments (The Gallery Press) won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1973. In 2010 The Sun-fish was the winner of the Canadian-based International Griffin Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award. She lives in Dublin with her husband and son.

Declan O'Brien is a civil servant, lives in Dublin and is a renowned versifier and wit. In 2005 he won the Strokestown Satire Prize with his poem The Corinthians Write Back and he has also been a prizewinner at the Bard of Armagh. He is a frequent contributer to RTÉ Radio 1's Liveline on its Funny Friday session, and is currently reckoned to be one of the funniest exponents and performers of comic poetry in the country. His play Sypan Summer was performed in 2006. He has produced a CD, Decalogues, of some of his poems and performances.

Ciarán Ó Coigligh was born in Dublin. He is a professor of Irish language, literature and civilization in Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, in Dublin. He has published three novels, one collection of short stories, and nine volumes of poetry, amongst which are  Filíocht an Reatha The Poetry of Running, Duibhlinn, Slán le Luimneach, Odaisé Ghael-Mheiriceánach / An Irish-American Dream.

Sean Ó Curraoin was born in Barna,West Galway. He spent most of his life as an Official Translator in the Oireachtas, and worked on Ó Domhnaill's Irish-English Dictionary. He won the Michael Hartnett poetry award in 2003. A poem of his 'Mo Shinsear' is included in the Leabhar Mór. Has also published two collections of short stories.

Tim O'Leary, former archaeologist, is a photographer whose exhibition Rite of Cancer (2006) matched sequences of photos and poetry and, from 2008, encouraged a focus on writing. He was shortlisted for the latest Grist competition and his poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review. Caveat '75 is from his unpublished collection Manganese Tears.

Jane Routh won the Poetry Business Competition 2001 with Circumnavigation, which was shortlisted for a Forward Prize. Her collection Teach Yourself Mapmaking (Smith/Doorstop 2006) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The title poem of her new book The Gift of Boats won the Academi Cardiff International Poetry Prize in 2009.

Elisabeth Rowe's collections include Surface Tension (Peterloo Poets 2003) and Thin Ice (Oversteps Books 2010)
Her poems have been widely anthologised, including in Open-mouthed (Prospect Books 2006) and have won prizes in competitions including Wells, Peterloo, Virginia Warbey, Poetry on the Lake and Second Light. She writes both serious poetry and comic verse.

Áine Uí Fhoghlú comes from the Gaeltacht of An Rinn, Co. Waterford. She has published two collections of poetry and two novellas. Her third collection is almost complete. She has won a number of awards for her writing and received bursaries from An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council and Ealaín na Gaeltachta.

Pat Winslow worked for twelve years as an actor and left the theatre in 1987 to take up writing. Her poetry collections include Unpredictable Geometry and Dreaming of Walls Repeating Themselves. Pat is currently working as a writer in residence at a prison. www.patwinslow.co.uk