Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan

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Noel was born in Granard, Co Longford. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Opposite Walls (1991), Snowfire (1995), and the critically acclaimed Curse of the Birds (2001), all from Salmon Books. He won the PJ O'Connor Award in 2001 for a radio play, Broken Cups.

Noel Monahan's work has also appeared in The Irish Times, The Sunday Tribune, Books Ireland, Poetry Australia, Paterson Literary Review, USA and many more outlets. He is co-editor of Windows Publications and has published five Authors & Artists Introduction Series. Since the beginning of 1997, he has been consultant editor of W.P. Literature & Arts journal. His plays include Half A Vegetable, a dramatic presentation of Patrick Kavanagh's poetry, A Proverbial Wet Summer, and Feathers of Time.

His poetry has been translated into Italian, Romanian and French and he has read his work at numerous summer schools and poetry festivals throughout Ireland. His poetry has appeared in many anthologies, most recently Awakenings, a text for the new Leaving Certificate English curriculum. He is the recent winner of the Poetry Ireland/Seacat National Poetry Award with a first prize of £5,000. Noel's poem "The Funeral Game" was chosen as the overall winner, out of 2,500 poems, by renowned judges, Michael Longley, Cathal O Searcaigh and Eavan Boland. In 2002 he received the A.S.T.I. Achievements Award for his contribution to literature in Ireland and abroad.

All of his poetry collections have earned him much critical acclaim especially his 2001 publication Curse of the Birds that evokes a world of myth and dark energies. In speaking for the voiceless in often bleak environments, and dealing with topics such as loneliness and uncertainty, yet always compassionate about their fate, he emerges as having a unique voice. Speaking of a previous collection, Snowfire, no less a critic than John Montague has praised him for colonising the ground once ploughed by his predecessors, most notably Patrick Kavanagh in transforming his everyday surroundings by his poetic vision.