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Life
1972-; b. Dublin; author of The Drowning of the Saints (2003), début poetry collection from 1998 Hennessy New Irish Writer; James Michener fellow of creative writing, Miami Univ.; poetry fellow, Houston, Texas; and 2002 Listowel Poetry prizewinner; writer in residence, Co. Longford Co. Council, 2002; writer in residence, University of Ulster, 2004-2006; issued The Orchard Keeper (2006); issued The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance (2010); issued Gunpodwer Valentine (20140; lives in Dublin.
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Works
The Drowning of the Saints (Co. Clare: Salmon Poetry 2003), 80pp. [incls. poems “Rhapsody with Owl”; “The Walk, after Chagall”; “To Dexter Above”, et al.]; The Orchard Keeper (Dublin: Dedalus Press 2006), 64pp.; The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance (Dublin: Dedalus Press 2010), 90pp.; Gunpowder Valentine (Dublin: Dedalus Press 2014), q.pp.
Also ed., with Nuala Ní Chomchúir, Best of Irish poetry 2009 / Scoth na hÉigse (Cork: Southword 2008), 118pp.; trans., 108 moons: the selected poems of Jurga Ivanauskaite, Jurga Ivanauskaite, translated from the Lithuanian by Paul Perry & Ruta Suchodolskyte (Dublin: TAF Publishing; Workshop Press 2010), xiii, 60pp.
Reviews incl. ‘Accepting the gift’, review of The Essential Brendan Kennelly, in The Irish Times, 7 May 2011, Weekend Review, p.11 [see extract under Kennelly - supra]
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Criticism
Fred Johnston, review of The Drowning of the Saints, in Books Ireland (April 2004), pp.89-90 [‘a real poetic find’; James McAuley, ‘Giving image pride of place’, review of The Orchid Keeper [with poetry of Tom Mac Intyre, Kerry Hardie and Robert Welch], in The Irish Times (16 Dec. 2006), Weekend [see extract]; Eamon Grennan, review of The Last Falcon [... &c.], with other works, in The Irish Times (7 Aug. 2010), Weekend, p.13 [see extract.]
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Commentary
James McAuley, ‘Giving image pride of place’, review of The Orchid Keeper [with poetry of Tom Mac Intyre, Kerry Hardie and Robert Welch], in The Irish Times (16 Dec. 2006), Weekend: ‘Some of Paul Perry’s new work, meanwhile, appears on the page as if texted to the reader - “smooth smooth / smooth enough to soothe / and clean a wound / almost” - though most of the 21 poems in this fascinating second collection are closer to the orthodox, often playfully so. “Towing an Iceberg to Belfast” takes up four pages with one-line, one-word double-shifted “stanzas” with a couplet or two, then six staggered lines, then a set of quatrains, then all of the above in a mix - cunningly contrived to suggest comic exertion, until “At last / The city/ Exhales an icy breath”. / In “The Lady with the Coronet of Jasmine”, the first-person speaker is Gladstone. The struggle between Christian orthodoxy and the Freudian libido is a strikingly successful use of the dramatic monologue. At 81 tercets, it is also courageously long in the era of the short personal lyric. Although Perry also includes a pair of epistolary prose-poems - arrgh! - most poetry readers will savour this slim but rich offering, and will likely read it through again before leaving it down.’
Eamon Grennan, review of The Last Falcon [... &c.], with other works, in The Irish Times (7 Aug. 2010), Weekend, p.13: ‘Perry creates a poetry of hope [...] remaining a little distance from passionate engagement, yet pulsing quietly with feeling [...] when Perry’s minor key surrealism invades poems without genuine emotional need or ignition they are less successful’.
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