Leontia Flynn
Leontia Flynn (born 1974) is a poet from Northern Ireland. She grew up in Ballyloughlin, County Down. She studied English Literature at Queen's University Belfast followed by a masters in writing and cultural politics at Edinburgh University. She later returned to Queen's to complete her PhD.
Flynn has been Research Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen's University Belfast, since 2005 and currently edits the journal The Yellow Nib with Frank Ormsby. As of February 2014, she is the Seamus Heaney Poet-in-Residence at the Bloomsbury Hotel, London.
Literary career
Flynn won an Eric Gregory Award in 2001. Her first book of poems These Days (Jonathan Cape) was published in 2004 and won the Forward Poetry Prize for best First Collection. It was also shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. Critic Tom Paulin described Flynn's poetry in These Days as "smart as a whip, lyrical, always on point – the real, right thing". The Whitbread judges described Flynn's first collection as: "A breathtakingly accomplished debut. These Days transforms Flynn's experiences into literary jewels. She has exceptional insight and the writerly rigour of a poet many years her senior." Flynn was named one of twenty 'Next Generation poets' by The Poetry Book Society. Her second poetry collection, Drives, was published in 2008. The same year she won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a major Individual Artists Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Drives was shortlisted for the 2009 Poetry Now Award.
Profit and Loss
Her third collection, Profit and Loss, was published in September 2011. It was the Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. Profit and Loss is divided into three sections. Section One is a series of interconnected poems based on the motif of rooms, and entitled 'A Gothic' and Section Two is a long poem entitled 'Letter to Friends'.
In The Irish Times, Philip Coleman wrote "Flynn's place as one of the strongest and most skillful poetic voices of her generation is confirmed in Profit and Loss". Flynn has written a Ph.D. thesis and a book on the poetry of Medbh McGuckian, as well as reviews and articles. She has written for the free Belfast newspaper The Vacuum since 2001.
Personal life
She currently lives in Belfast with her partner and young daughter.
Bibliography
- These Days Jonathan Cape 2004; ISBN 0-224-07197-1.
- Drives Jonathan Cape 2008; ISBN 0-224-08517-4.
- Profit and Loss Jonathan Cape 2011; ISBN 0-224-09343-6.
External links
- Official website
- British Council profile
- - Fran Brearton's review of Profit and Loss for The Guardian, 2 September 2011
- - Yellow Nib website
- - The Vacuum website
Recipients of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature | ||
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