Riordan, Maurice

(1953- )

   Born in Lisgoold, County Cork, Ireland, he was educated at University College, Cork, and McMaster University in Canada, and emigrated to England, where he now teaches at Goldsmiths College, London. He is the author of two books of poetry: A Word from Loki (1995), which was short listed for a T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice; and Floods (2000), short-listed for the Whitbread Prize. He edited, with science journalist Jon Turney, A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems about Science (2000); and with John Burnside (see entry), Wild Reckoning (2004), an anthology of ecological poems to mark the fortieth anniversary of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (American zoologist and biologist, 1907-1964). His Confidential Reports, translations of the Maltese poet Immanuel Mifsud, was published in 2005. The Moon Has Written You a Poem: Poems to Read with Children on Moonlit Nights, adapted from the Portuguese of José Letria, was also published in 2005. In 2004 he was selected as one of the Poetry Society's "Next Generation" poets and in 2005 he became poetry editor of Poetry London. Three of his poems: "Milk," "The January Birds," "Time Out."

   Sources: Biography of Maurice Riordan (http://www.munsterlit.ie/Conwriters/Maurice%20Riordan.htm). British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times. Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney, eds. Faber and Faber, 1996. Modern Irish Poetry. Patrick Crotty, ed. The Blackstaff Press, 1995. The January Birds by Maurice Riordan (http://www.thepoem.co.uk/poems/riordan.htm).