WIS Database of Writers

Born in 1956 in San Francisco & grew up in Massachusetts, New York & Rhode Island. I attended Harvard University, where I studied with the poet & translator Robert Fitzgerald. Since 1979, I have lived in Ireland. I am the author of two books of poetry, In the New Hampshire Woods (Dedalus, 1992) & First Light (Dedalus, 1993). A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry (Chicago), & Metre, I also edited Scar on the Stone: Contemporary Poetry from Bosnia (Bloodaxe Books, 1998, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation) & Unfinished Ireland: Essays on Hubert Butler (Irish Pages, 2003). My work is included in the landmark Northern anthology, Magnetic North: the Emerging Poets, edited by John Brown (Lagan Press, 2006). I now edit Irish Pages, a journal of contemporary writing based at the Linen Hall Belfast. I review for the Irish Times & have recently completed a new collection of poems, Next to Nothing.

First Light is a very fine work indeed. Agee seems to have hit that fine balance between allusiveness & clarity, & formal control & spontaneity, that so few poets manage to achieve these days - Don Paterson