Derek Mahon is one of a significant number of poets from Northern Ireland who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has published five full collections of verse to date, as well as a number of shorter volumes of poems, and is widely regarded as one of the most talented and original voices in contemporary poetry.

He was born and grew up in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (1953-1960), and at Trinity College, Dublin (1960-1965), where he majored in French. He began writing verse early, and his first publication, Twelve Poems, appeared in 1967. After leaving Trinity Mahon spent the next five years (1965-1970) teaching and doing odd jobs in England, France, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. In 1970 he settled in London on a more or less permanent basis and began a career as...