Billy Mills (poet) facts for kids

Billy Mills (born in 1954) is an Irish poet who likes to try new and different ways of writing poems. He started and helps run a small publishing company called hardPressed poetry with Catherine Walsh. They also work on the Journal. hardPressed poetry publishes and shares Irish poems that you might not easily find in regular bookstores.

Billy Mills was born in Dublin, Ireland. He lived in Barcelona, Spain, from 1986 to 1989. After that, he taught English in Eastbourne, UK, until 1995. Today, he lives in Limerick, Ireland. He used to write often for The Guardian's book blog between 2008 and 2016. He also sometimes writes for the Dublin Review of Books.

Early Poems and Books

Billy Mills wrote some poems when he was a teenager and in his early twenties, but these poems are now lost. His first known poems were in a publication called The Beau 3. These were later included in his first book, Genesis & Home, which came out in 1985. This was also the very first book published by hardPressed poetry.

A year later, he released two small books called On First Looking into Lorine Niedecker and A Small Love Song. In 1987, hardPressed poetry published his second full-length book, Triple Helix. His first book from a bigger, well-known publisher was Letters from Barcelona, released by Dedalus Press in 1990.

Later Works and Collaborations

While living in the UK, Billy Mills met people who worked in publishing. Because of these connections, his next books were published in the UK. These included The Properties of Stone (1996) and 5 Easy Pieces (1997).

After that, he published Tiny Pieces (1998) and A Small Book of Songs (1999). In 2000, hardPressed poetry released What is a Mountain? This was a special limited edition, meaning only 26 copies were made, each numbered and signed.

In 2009, a big book called Lares / Manes — Collected Poems was published. This book brought together almost all of his poems that had been printed before, plus some new ones. In 2011, a writer named Carol Rumens chose 'Tiny Pieces' from this book as her "Poem of the Week" on The Guardian's books blog. His most recent books are Imaginary Gardens (2012), Loop Walks (2014), and The City Itself (2017).

In 2018, Billy Mills recorded himself reading parts of Imaginary Gardens and Loop Walks. These recordings are kept in the University College Dublin Library's special collections.

Billy Mills also worked with David Bremner, a composer from Dublin. David Bremner created music for Billy Mills' Loop Walks, which was performed at the Béal Festival in Dublin in 2012. A recording of this performance, along with a booklet and video, is available online. David Bremner also set Billy Mills' poem 'Four' to music in a long piece called a cantata, performed in 2018. This music used old-style instruments, voices, and electronics. The words for this piece are in Billy Mills' book a book of sounds. Most recently, David Bremner's group of songs called Logical Fallacies, which uses poems by Billy Mills, was on his CD Mixed Circuits in 2022. These songs were first created for the Limerick City of Culture 2014 event and performed in 2014.

Books by Billy Mills

• Genesis and Home (hardPressed poetry, 1985)
• On First Looking into Lorine Niedecker (hardPressed poetry, 1986)
• A Small Love Song (Red Wheelbarrow Press, 1986 – a folded paper)
• Triple Helix (hardPressed poetry, 1987)
• Letters from Barcelona (Dedalus, 1990)
• Properties Of Stone (Writers Forum, London, 1996)
• 5 Easy Pieces (Shearsman, Plymouth, 1997)
• Horace: 5 Traductions (Form Books, London, 1997)
• Tiny Pieces (Wild Honey, Dublin, 1998)
• A Small Book of Songs (Wild Honey, 1999)
• What is a Mountain? (hardPressed poetry, 2000)
• Lares/Manes: Collected Poems (Shearsman, 2009)
• Imaginary Gardens (hardPressed poetry, 2012)
• Loop Walks" (hardPressed poetry 2014 – a special limited edition of 50 copies)
• The City Itself (Hesterglock Press, 2017)
• a book of sounds (Shearsman, 2024)