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Life
1972-; b. Dublin; winner of Hennessy New Irish Writer with short fiction, 1998; appt. James Michener fellow of creative writing, Miami Univ., and afterwards Cambor poetry fellow, Houston, Texas; winner of Listowel Poetry Award, 2002; writer in residence, Co. Longford Co. Council, 2002; issued The Drowning of the Saints (2003), a début poetry collection; writer in residence, University of Ulster, 2004-06; issued The Orchard Keeper (2006); issued The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance (2010); issued Gunpowder Valentine (2014), poems of war; his poem “The Shepherd’s Purse” appeared in Poetry in 2015; taught Creative Writing at Kingston U. (London) and UCD;
appt. director of Mary Lavin Centre for Creative Writing, UCD; published successful thriller series co-authored with Karen Gilhece as Karen Perry [pen-name]; issued The Garden (2021), solo, a thriller set in Miami (Fl.); shortlisted for Farmgate National Poetry Book Award, 2023; curates DLR Poetry Now, the longest-running international poetry festival in Ireland; his thriller series with Karen Gilhece as Karen Perry has been a Penguin best-seller; Drift (2013), a video of his poem, was made by Marc Neys; married, with three children (Bl´aithín, Fionn, and Leonora); lives in Dublin.
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Works
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| Anthologies & translations [incl.] |
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| Fiction |
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Also: co-authored six novels with Karen Gilhece as Karen Perry [pen-name] in a Penguin series incl. The Boy That Never Was (2014), Only We Know (2015), Girl Unknown (2016), Your Closest Friend (2018), Come a Little Closer (2019), and The Innocent Sleep (2014). |
| Miscellaneous |
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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.]
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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GUNPOWDER VALENTINE I. I went there too I did not have to go I saw the best of men clearing the villages was awful maddened cows dripping it was something terrible then I saw that it was alive forgive us be careful we’ll be back for leaving you my wife was frightened all except for my hat he was proud of me one year after that time that was it II. they cried they offered us moonshine they were sold cheap empty now III. do not have children they told us we slept in beds of straw |
IV. our work was secret and were called tourists to something more lunar earth had once been the roofs had the names of women she was cut open like a wound V. VI. under the apple trees I put on my mask sitting in the hives so strange was their silence VII. the girls had ribbons in their hair I have seen and heard too much our lives are a long winter VIII. like a black wing picking strawberries is not allowed in a bitter dream |
| Available at Poetry International - online; accessed 06-09-2025. | |
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| The Irish Times; rep Irish Centre for Poetry Studies (both 6 Aug. 2025). |
See extract from “The Ghosts of Barnacullia” [title-poem] and “Sheperd’s Purse“ at Poetry Foundation - online.
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Notes
Drift (2013): Video film based on Perry’s poem dedicated to two NATO soldiers who drowned attempting to recover supplies from a river in Badghis, Western Afghanistan; winner of 1st Prize at La Parola Immaginata 2013 as part of TreviglioPoesia Festival (Italy), 28 May 2013 [view online]
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