- Justin Quinn
Justin Quinn is an Irish poet and critic, born in
Dublin in 1968. He received a doctorate fromTrinity College, Dublin , where his contemporaries included poetsCaitriona O'Reilly and Sinead Morrissey, and now lives with his wife and sons inPrague . He is a lecturer atCharles University .He has published four poetry collections: "The 'O'o'a'a' Bird" (1995), "Privacy" (1999), "Fuselage" (2002) and "Waves & Trees" (2006). "The 'O'o'a'a' Bird" was nominated for the
Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection.He was a founding editor of the poetry journal "Metre" and has published two critical studies, "Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community", and "American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry". He has also translated extensively from Czech, in particular the work of Petr Borkovec, and written non-fiction prose on life in the Czech Republic for the" Dublin Review".
Quinn's work shows the influence of American writers such as, principally,
Wallace Stevens , but alsoAnthony Hecht andJames Merrill . It is characterised by a sensual lushness informed by an awareness of the violence of history, as inflected by the author's experiences of living in the Czech Republic. In its mix of formalist sophistication and openness to experiment Quinn's work confounds perceptions of Irish poetry as rigidly dichotomised between formal conservatism and 1930s-derived innovation, a distinctiveness confirmed by the editorial decision to award him the single largest share of the 2004 Bloodaxe anthology "The New Irish Poets".He has recently translated the work of Czech poet Ivan Blatný.
Books
Poetry
*"The 'O'o'a'a' Bird" (Carcanet, 1995)
*"Privacy" (Carcanet, 1999)
*"Fuselage" (The Gallery Press, 2002)
*"Waves and Trees" (The Gallery Press, 2006)Criticism
*"Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community" (UCD Press, 2002)
*"American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry" (UCD Press, 2005)Translations
*"The Drug of Art: Selected Poems of Ivan Blatný" (trs Justin Quinn "et al", Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007)
*" Petr Borkovec: From the Interior, Poems 1995-2005" (Seren, 2008)Art Books
*"Jiří Mědílek, Obrazy" (Prague: Opus, 2008)* [http://cprw.com/quinn2.htm Short biography]
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