Shearsman Gallery

Michael Smith

Michael Smith lives in Dublin, where he was born in 1942. He founded New Writers' Press in 1967, which published a number of neglected Irish poets, as well as several important younger writers. He was also co-founder and editor of the literary magazine The Lace Curtain. His own collections are With the Woodnymphs (Dublin, New Writers' Press, 1968); Times & Locations (Dublin, The Dolmen Press; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972); Familiar Anecdotes (New Writers' Press, 1981); Selected Poems (Cork, The Melmoth Press, 1985); Lost Genealogies (New Writers' Press, 1993); Meditations on Metaphors (New Writers' Press, 1998). An expanded and updated Selected Poems, entitled The Purpose of the Gift was published by Shearsman Books in October 2004, together with a volume of selected translations from the Anglo-Saxon, Irish and Spanish, entitled Maldon & Other Translations. More recently he has co-translated the complete poetry of César Vallejo for Shearsman Books, with Valentino Gianuzzi.

He has translated extensively from the Spanish. His translations include Pablo Neruda: Twenty Love Poems & a Poem of Despair (NWP, 1974); Antonio Machado: Early Poems (NWP, 1976); Miguel Hernández: Unceasing Lightning (Dedalus, Dublin, 1986); Francisco de Quevedo: On The Anvil (Dedalus, 1987); Luis de Góngora: Selected Shorter Poems (London, Anvil Press Poetry, 1995) and Federico García Lorca: The Tamarit Poems (Dedalus, Dublin, 2002).

Michael Smith has also edited the Selected Poems of James Clarence Mangan (Gallery Books, Oldcastle, Co. Meath), and Irish Poetry, The Thirties Generation (Raven Arts Press, Dublin, 1983).

His awards include The European Academy of Poetry Medal for his services to the translation of poetry.

The texts of these translations are copyright © Michael Smith, 2004. The photograph of the author at the Cork International Poetry Festival, 2002, is copyright © Tom Raworth, 2002, and is reproduced here with his kind permission.