Michael Longley

Irish poet Michael Longley was born in Belfast and read Classics at Trinity College, Dublin. Between 1970 and 1991, he worked as Combined Arts Director for literature and the traditional arts in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Longley's first collection of poetry, No Continuing City: Poems 1963-1968, was published in 1969 and his most recent books are the award-winning The Weather in Japan (2000), Snow Water (2004) and his Collected Poems which appeared in 2006. Selections of his poetry have been translated into many languages. Among the numerous prestigious prizes Longley has received are a Whitbread Poetry Award, the Hawthornden Prize, the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2001, Longley was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature as well as a member of Aosdána. Michael Longley lives in Belfast.