Michael Longley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael Longley
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Longley reading his poetry at the Corrymeela Peace Centre near Ballycastle, County Antrim, July 2012
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| Born | 27 July 1939 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 22 January 2025 (aged 85) |
| Education | Royal Belfast Academical Institution |
| Alma mater | Trinity College Dublin (TCD) |
| Notable awards | Whitbread Poetry Prize T. S. Eliot Prize Hawthornden Prize |
Michael Longley CBE (27 July 1939 – 22 January 2025) was a Northern Irish poet. Following his death, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, called Longley "a peerless poet".
Life and career
One of twin boys, Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to English parents. Longley was educated at RBAI and subsequently read Classics at Trinity College Dublin, where he edited Icarus. He was the Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007 to 2010, a cross-border academic post set up in 1998, previously held by John Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul Durcan. He was succeeded in 2010 by Harry Clifton. After teaching for several years in Dublin, London and Belfast, he was a director of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland 1970 to 1991.
Over 50 years, he spent much time in Carrigskeewaun, County Mayo, which inspired much of his poetry.
His wife, Edna, is a critic on modern Irish and British poetry. They had three children. Their daughter is the artist Sarah Longley. An atheist, Longley described himself as a "sentimental" disbeliever.
In 1994, Longley wrote his most famous poem, 'Ceasefire'. Composed in hope of a ceasefire between the IRA and loyalist forces, it was released only one day before one came about. The poem adapts a famous scene from the Iliad, where King Priam begs for the body of his son back from the warrior Achilles.
In October 2002, Longley opposed a decision by Queen's University Belfast to end the teaching of Classics and urged the university's senate to take action. Citing Northern Ireland's recent troubled past, he asked: "Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised?"
On 14 January 2014, he participated in the BBC Radio 3 series The Essay – Letters to a Young Poet. Taking Rainer Maria Rilke's classic text Letters to a Young Poet as inspiration, leading poets wrote a letter to a protege. Longley provided readings of his poetry for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive (UCD).
His twin brother, Peter, died in 2013/14. Longley dedicated the second half of The Stairwell (2014), his tenth collection, to him.
Longley died on 22 January 2025, at the age of 85.
North American editions of Longley's work are published by Wake Forest University Press.
Awards and honours
Gorse Fires (1991) won the Whitbread Poetry Prize. The Weather in Japan (2000) won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. It also brought him the inaugural Yakamochi Medal in 2018. He received honorary doctorates from Queen's (1995) and Trinity (1999) and was the 2001 recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Longley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.
Longley won a 2011 London Awards for Art and Performance. His collection A Hundred Doors won the Poetry Now Award in September 2012.
His 2014 collection, The Stairwell, won the 2015 International Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2015, he received the Ulster Tatler Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize in 2017. The Chair of the judges, Don Paterson, said: "For decades now his effortlessly lyric and fluent poetry has been wholly suffused with the qualities of humanity, humility and compassion, never shying away from the moral complexity that comes from seeing both sides of an argument."
In 2015 Longley was elected a Freeman of the City of Belfast. In 2018, he was made an honorary fellow of Trinity.
List of works
- Ten Poems (1965), Belfast: Festival Publications
- Secret Marriages: Nine Short Poems (1968), Manchester: Phoenix Press
- No Continuing City (1969), London: Macmillan: New York: Dufour Editions
- Lares (1972) Woodford Green, London: Poet & Printer
- An Exploded View (1973), London: Victor Gollancz
- Fishing in the Sky: Love Poems (1975), London: Poet & Printer
- Man Lying on a Wall (1976), London: Victor Gollancz; (1977) New York: Transatlantic Arts
- The Echo Gate (1979) London: Seeker & Warburg; New York: Random House
- Selected Poems 1963–1980 (1981), Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Patchwork (1981), Dublin: The Gallery Press
- Poems 1963–1983 (1985), Edinburgh: The Salamander Press; Dublin: The Gallery Press; (1987) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Gorse Fires (1991), London: Seeker & Warburg; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Baucis and Philemon: After Ovid (1993), London: Poet & Printer
- Birds and Flowers: Poems (1994), Edinburgh: Morning Star
- Tuppeny Stung: Autobiographical Chapters (1994), Belfast: Lagan Press
- The Ghost Orchid (1995), London: Jonathan Cape; (1996) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Ship of the Wind (1997), Dublin: Poetry Ireland
- Broken Dishes (1998), Newry, Northern Ireland: Abbey Press
- Selected Poems (1998), London: Jonathan Cape; (1999) Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Out of the Cold (1999), Newry, Northern Ireland: Abbey Press
- The Weather in Japan (2000), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Cenotaph of Snow: Sixty Poems About War (2003), London: Enitharmon Press
- Snow Water (2004), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- The Rope-Makers (2005), London: Enitharmon Press
- Collected Poems (2006), London: Jonathan Cape; (2007), Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- A Jovial Hullabaloo (2008), London: Enitharmon Press
- A Hundred Doors (2011), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- The Stairwell (2014), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- One Wide Expanse (2015), Dublin: University College Dublin Press
- Sea Asters (2015), published by Andrew J Moorhouse – Fine Press Poetry
- The Dipper's Range (2016), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
- Twelve Poems (2016), Thame, Oxford: Clutag Press
- Angel Hill (2017), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Sidelines: Selected Prose (2017), London: Enitharmon Press
- Ghetto (2019), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
- The Candlelight Master (2020), London: Jonathan Cape; Winston-Salem, USA: Wake Forest University Press
- Homer's Octopus (2020), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
- Metamorphoses (2022), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
- Canticle (2022), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
- The Slain Birds (2022), London: Jonathan Cape
- Birds & Flowers (2024), Rochdale, UK: Andrew J Moorhouse, Fine Press Poetry
See also
- List of Northern Irish writers
