Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke

Signed title page of -Other People's Houses- by Vona Groarke.

Other People’s Houses, Gallery Press 1999, was received by the Times Literary Supplement as a remarkable achievement, praising its author’s remarkably assured and beautifully regulated voice. The collection uses the image of the house, and houses themselves, as the setting for the enactment of particular lives. It ranges from the witty Open House through richly suppressed narratives such as Domestic Arrangements, to the more sombre Holiday Home.

Signed title page of -Other People's Houses- by Vona Groarke.

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Now living in Dundalk, Vona Groarke was born in Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford. She is the author of three collections of poetry. Shale, Other People's Houses, and Flight, all from Gallery Press.

Her first collection, Shale, won The Brendan Behan Memorial Award in 1995 and Other People's Houses, Gallery Press 1999, was received by the Times Literary Supplement as a remarkable achievement, praising its author's remarkably assured and beautifully regulated voice. The collection uses the image of the house, and houses themselves, as the setting for the enactment of particular lives. It ranges from the witty "Open House" through richly suppressed narratives such as "Domestic Arrangements", to the more sombre "Holiday Home".

A third collection, Flight, published in 2002, won the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award, an award specifically targeting poets at mid-career. In commenting on her work, the judges, Paula Meehan, Rita Ann Higgins and Matthew Sweeney commented:

This is an assured collection building on the promise of earlier work and bodes well for the future. The work is formally accomplished, energised by uncertainties. The sharp eye, powerful music and restless intelligence distinguish her as a necessary voice. It is a privilege to encounter work of such freshness and wit.

Flight features two award-winning meditations on the troubled subjects of history and time. Also included is "The Bower", a sequence in sections that take their titles from the names of trees and use them as first notes in songs of the human predicament. Other shorter lyrics and love poems develop the book's distinctive resonances.

Other awards include the Strokestown Poetry Award in 1999, the Stand magazine prize in 2000 and the inaugural Davoren Hanna award in 2001. Vona Groarke now lives in Dundalk with her husband and two children. She has been Writer in Residence with the NUI, Galway, at Maynooth, and with Cavan County Council.

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