Biography

James Harpur has published eleven poetry collections and two verse memoirs, including The Magic Theatre (2025) (memoir); A Place Where Ireland Is Invisible (2025);The Gospel of Gargoyle (2024); The Examined Life (2021) (memoir), winner of the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize; and The White Silhouette (2018), an Irish Times Book of the Year. His poetry pamphlet, A Hidden Silence, is forthcoming from Dare-Gale Press in late 2026. For a full bibliography, please click here.

Angels and Harvesters (2012) was a PBS Recommendation and shortlisted for the 2013 Irish Times Award; and The Dark Age (2007) won the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize.

His work has won many awards and bursaries, including the1995 British National Poetry Competition, a Patrick and Katharine Kavanagh Fellowship, and the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. His debut novel, The Pathless Country, was winner of J.G. Farrell Award and shortlisted for the John McGahern Prize.

His work has appeared in the national press, including The Irish Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and The Independent, on national and local radio (including RT Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4), and on public transport. He is a member of Aosd na, the Irish academy of the arts, and lives in West Cork.

For a more extended biography please visit James s page on the Poetry International website here

For an interview with James in Poetry Ireland Review, which explores his background and his views about myth, spirituality, poetry and other subjects, click here.

An extensive interview with James by the Australian poet Kevin Brophy, was published in the journal Axon, here