O'Donnell, John

(1960- )

   John O'Donnell was born in Ireland and was educated at Gonzaga College (a Catholic boys' secondary school in Ranelagh, Dublin), University College Dublin, King's Inns school of Law, Dublin, and Cambridge University, England. His poems have been published many newspapers and journals in Ireland, the U.K., America and Australia, and in anthologies. He has also given public readings in Ireland and England and has broadcast on Irish radio and local radio. In 1998 he won the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune New Irish Writing Award for Poetry, having previously been short listed in 1997 and 1991. He also won the Listowel Writers' Week Prize for Poetry in 1998, for Best Individual Poem and Best Short Collection. In 1997 he was runner up for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Some Other Country, his first collection, was published in 2002; also in 2002 he won the SeaCat Irish National Poetry Prize. His most recent collection of poems, Icarus Sees His Father Fly, was published in 2004.

   Sources: Biography of John O'Donnell (http://www.dedaluspress.com/poets/odonnell.html).