Michael Smith was born in Dublin in 1942, and is well-known for his poetry, his editorial work, his translations of Spanish poetry (many of them for Shearsman Books), and his polemical support for the lost generation of Irish modernist poets. This volume brings together for the first time under one set of covers all of the work that he wishes to preserve, and demonstrates conclusively that this quiet but authoritative voice deserves greater recognition on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Author Biography:
Michael Smith lives in Dublin, where he was born in 1942. He founded New Writers' Press in 1967, which published a number of neglected Irish poets, as well as several important younger writers. He was also co-founder and editor of the literary magazine The Lace Curtain. His own collections are With the Woodnymphs (Dublin, New Writers' Press, 1968); Times & Locations (Dublin, The Dolmen Press; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972); Familiar Anecdotes (New Writers' Press, 1981); Selected Poems (Cork, The Melmoth Press, 1985); Lost Genealogies (New Writers' Press, 1993); Meditations on Metaphors (New Writers' Press, 1998). An expanded and updated Selected Poems, entitled The Purpose of the Gift was published by Shearsman Books in October 2004, together with a volume of selected translations from the Anglo-Saxon, Irish and Spanish, entitled Maldon & Other Translations. He has translated extensively from the Spanish. His translations include Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernandez, Francisco de Quevedo, Luis de Gongora, Cesar Vallejo, Claudio Rodriguez, Rosalia de Castro and Federico Garcia Lorca. Michael Smith has also edited the Selected Poems of James Clarence Mangan, and Irish Poetry, The Thirties Generation. Forthcoming projects include the Selected Poems of Elsa Cross and Veronica Volkow for Shearsman in 2009, and an edition of Sir Thomas Wyatt for the Shearsman Classics series. His awards include The European Academy of Poetry Medal for his services to the translation of poetry.
