Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke is an Irish poet and the author of thirteen books and eight poetry collections, including X (The Gallery Press, 2014); Spindrift (Wake Forest University Press, 2010); and Juniper Street (Wake Forest University Press, 2006). She has also published two translations from the Irish, most recently Woman of Winter (The Gallery Press, 2023), a version of the Irish poem known in English as “The Lament of the Hag of Beara” or “The Hag of Beara.”

Groarke’s awards include the Brendan Behan Memorial Prize, the Hennessy Literary Award, the Michael Hartnett Annual Poetry Award, and the Strokestown International Poetry Prize.

Groarke has taught at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester in England since 2007. She was also a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library from 2018 to 2019, in addition to serving as editor of Poetry Ireland Review and a selector for the United Kingdom’s Poetry Book Society. She is currently the writer in residence at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and lives in County Sligo, Ireland.