One of the most prestigious positions in poetry, the Ireland Professor of Poetry, was today announced by the Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust.
Vona Groarke will be the tenth Ireland Professor of Poetry, taking over from the current holder, Professor Paul Muldoon.
The position will run from September 2025 to November 2028.
Of her appointment, Groarke said "It may seem strange for the newly minted Irish Professor of Poetry to find herself (almost!) at a loss for words to describe the delight and honour of having been selected for a role some of our finest poets have graced and amplified."
Born in Mostrim, Co. Longford, Vera Groarke has published fourteen books, including eight collections of poetry with the Gallery Press, amongst them Shale (1994), Other People's Houses (1999), Flight (2002), Juniper Street (2006), Spindrift (2009), X (2014), Double Negative (2019), and Link: Poet and World (2021).
Watch: Vona Groarke reads her poem Stansted to Knock, December 21st
She has also published translations of the eighteenth-century Irish poem Lament for Art O'Leary (Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire) and Woman of Winter, a version of the ninth-century Irish poem usually known as The Lament of the Hag of Beare.
A member of Aosdána, and a former editor of the Poetry Ireland Review, she is currently Senior Lecturer in Poetry at the Centre for New Writing at Manchester University, as well as Poet in Residence with the Yeats Society in Sligo and Writer in Residence at St John's College, Cambridge.
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Listen: Vona Groarke presents Writing Yourself Home for The Lyric Feature
The Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust was established in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Seamus Heaney. The Chair is supported by Queens University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, as well as by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. During their tenure, the Ireland Professor of Poetry is associated for one year with each of the three universities and resides for a period of approximately eight weeks at each
Vona Groarke added: "I would like my time as Ireland Professor of Poetry to honour all those individuals and organisations, from teachers to libraries, readers to Irish publishers, whose attentions and efforts help to sustain the work of Irish poets. Together, we contribute to a sense that Ireland north and south, is a place where poetry happens and continues to matter. I also look forward to engaging with as many aspiring poets and readers of all ages as possible during my time in the role."
