Mahon, Derek, 1941-....

Derek Mahon (1941- ), poet, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Irish poet Derek Mahon met Louis Asekoff in the early 1960s while they were students at Trinity College in Dublin. Louis Asekoff (1939- ), poet and educator, currently coordinates the M.F.A. Program in Poetry at Brooklyn College. His poems have appeared in many magazines, including THE NEW YORKER, POETRY, TIKKUN, SALAMAGUNDI, TRIQUARTERLY, and THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW. He has twice received The American Poetry Review Jerome Shestack Prize for Poetry. He has published two books of poetry, DREAMS OF A WORK (1994) and NORTH STAR (1997) by Orchieses Press, Washington, D.C. He has received poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Fund for Poetry.

Derek Mahon was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 23, 1941. He was educated at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he majored in French (1960-1965). In 1960 he began publishing poems in ICARUS, a student literary magazine, and his first collection of poems, the chapbook TWELVE POEMS, was published five years later by Queens University. Oxford University Press published his first major collection, NIGHT CROSSING, in 1968. In addition to his role as poet, Mahon has worked as a free-lance journalist, served as drama critic for the LISTENER (1971-1972) and features editor for VOGUE (1974-1975), contributed reviews to the OBSERVER, the LISTENER, NEW STATESMAN, and the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, and written adaptations for television for the BBC.

Irish poet, playwright and author.

Mahon was born in Belfast. He was educated in Belfast and Dublin, receiving a B.A. from Trinity College in 1965. He then began to teach English in Northern Ireland and Dublin. From 1977 he taught at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.