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David Wheatley

David Wheatley (Ireland / Scotland) read at the 2018 John Hewitt International Summer School, alongside Ailbhe Darcy. 

David was born in Dublin where he studied at Trinity College and edited the student poetry journal “Icarus.” With Justin Quinn he also edited the highly influential poetry journey, “Metre”.  Previously at the University of Hull, he is currently Reader with the School Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture at the University of Aberdeen. 

His most recent poetry collection, “The President of Planet Earth”, was published in 2017 by Carcanet and Wake Forest and was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award. He has published four collections with Gallery Press: “Thirst” (1997; Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection), “Misery Hill (2000), “Mocker” (2006, shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award), and “Nest on the Waves (2010). He is widely anthologised, including in: “Metamorphoses” (Faber, 1994), “The New Irish Poets” (Bloodaxe, 2004), “Identity Parade: New British & Irish Poets” (Bloodaxe, 2010), “An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry” (Harvard UP, 2010), and “The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry” (2010). In 2015 he was a judge for the National Poetry Competition (UK). 

David is a noted critic and has edited the “Poems” of James Clarence Mangan (Gallery, 2003) and Samuel Beckett’s “Selected Poems 1930-1989” (Faber, 2009). “A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism of Contemporary British Poetry” was published by Palgrave (2014) and he is collaborating with Ailbhe Darcy on the “Cambridge History of Irish Women’s Poetry, (forthcoming 2021)”. He has contributed to, among others: “Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry” (2012), “The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry” (2013), “The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney” (2009) and “The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry” (2003).