Education
Born in 1966 he studied biology and chemistry and subsequently took an Master of Arts in poetry under the direction of James Simmons.
(In this third collection of his poems, Irish poet Joseph ...)
In this third collection of his poems, Irish poet Joseph Woods again returns to the theme of travel, at once deepening and expanding the concerns of his earlier work, while he also explores the meaning of return and homecoming, of being abroad in one's own place and of seeing the familiar from a new perspective. Childhood memories and experiences are renewed and refreshed, the past and the future echoing each other, from the child in the opening poem "imagining myself in some ship's open hold / while Morse code drifted in from the kitchen" to the closing poem where an old man on "a wet lane of fuchsia-laden hedges / on the damp island of Chiloé" might have "stravaged out / of my country decades ago".
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Born in 1966 he studied biology and chemistry and subsequently took an Master of Arts in poetry under the direction of James Simmons.
Widely travelled, he lived in Japan in the early 1990s and travelled for long periods in Asia, in particular China and India and more recently Latin America. He now lives in Yangon, Myanmar. He was Director of Poetry Ireland, the national organisation for the support and promotion of poets and poetry from 2001 to 2013.
As an editor he co-edited with Irene de Angelis Our Shared Japan (Dedalus Press 2007) an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry concerning Japan.
He has edited numerous other poetry publications and more recently co-edited with Gerard Smyth, The Poetry Project, a web anthology of visual artists and filmmakers interpreting selected poems. Dedalus Press reissued Woods" first two poetry collections in one volume entitled Cargo (2010) and in 2011 published his third collection Ocean Letters.
In 2014 Woods was a recipient of the Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship.
(In this third collection of his poems, Irish poet Joseph ...)