PAT BORAN

Welcome to the website of Irish poet Pat Boran. Here you’ll find samples of his many books, a growing selection of his poetry films, and much more. For commissions or other work, please use the Contact form.

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Recent Poetry Films

POPULAR BOOKS by PAT BORAN

Short Biog Note

PAT BORAN is one of the best-known Irish poets. His publications to date include more than a dozen books of poetry and prose. The most recent are the illustrated Building the Ark (2022) and The Statues of Emo Court (2021). Among his full-length books are Then Again (2019), A Man is Only As Good: A Pocket Selected Poems (2017), and Waveforms: Bull Island Haiku (2015). This last book inspired the Lyric FM radio documentary of the same name.

As well as poetry Pat Boran writes non-fiction. His humorous memoir The Invisible Prison (2009), about growing up in the Irish midlands, received rave reviews. And his writers’ handbook The Portable Creative Writing Workshop is still in print after almost 20 years. (Most of his books are available from Dedalus Press.) His books have been published in Italian, Hungarian, Macedonian, Greek, French & Portuguese.

Pat Boran received the Patrick Kavanagh Award and the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award in the United States. Since presenting The Poetry Programme and The Enchanted Way on RTÉ Radio, he has edited more than 100 poetry books and anthologies. The Word Ark: A Pocket Book of Animal Poems (2020) appeared in the first Covid-19 lockdown and he followed it with Local Wonders: Poems of our Immediate Surrounds (2021).

A member of Aosdána, Ireland’s affiliation of creative artists, in recent years he has been making short poetry films, often with his own music. These have been selected for festivals and won prizes in more than ten countries. You can find a selection on this website as well as on YouTube).

Pat Boran on Dublin's Bull Island
Pat Boran on Bull Island, Dublin, the subject of his popular book of haiku and photographs, Waveforms: Bull Island Haiku, also a radio documentary by Claire Cunningham