James Harpur

James Harpur (born 1956)) is an Irish poet and novelist.

Life[]

James Harpur was born in England in 1956. His father was Irish and his mother was English.

While at school he studied Latin, Greek and Divinity and proceeded to Trinity College, University of Cambridge where he studied English.^[1]

After graduation he taught English on Crete before moving to West Cork where he has lived since.^[2]

He writes both poetry and non-fiction. He has said about his interest in poetry: I have always been fascinated by questions relating to the nature of ultimate truth – is there a God, is there life after death, is there a cosmic intelligence that we call Fate, are extraordinary coincidences a matter of luck or design, are we merely assemblages of atoms blundering around, are our lives, to quote TS Eliot again, a matter of birth, copulation, and death? For my explorations of these questions I have always thought that poetry – the best words in the best order (Coleridge) – was the most apt medium.^[3]

He is the poetry editor of the literary journal, Southword^[4] and also of the Temenos Academy Review.^[5]

He is a member of Aosdána - the Irish Academy of the Arts.

Works[]

Poetry[]

• A Vision of Comets (Anvil Press Poetry, London, 1993)
• The Monk’s Dream (Anvil Press Poetry, London, 1996)
• Oracle Bones (Anvil Press Poetry, London, 2001)
• The Dark Age (Anvil Press Poetry, London, 2007)
• The Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea (Wild Goose)
• The White Silhouette (Carcanet, 2018)

Translation[]

• Fortune’s Prisoner: The poems of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (Anvil Press Poetry, London, 2007)

Non-fiction[]

• Love Burning in the Soul: the Story of the Christian Mystics (Shambhala, Boston, 2005)

Awards[]

• Member, Aosdána
• 2018: The Irish Times Book of the Year - for The White Silhouette
• 2012: Poetry Book Society Recommendation - for Angels and Harvesters
• 2013: Shortlisted for The Irish Times Award - for Angels and Harvesters
• 2007: Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize - for The Dark Age
• 1995: National Poetry Competition (UK)
• Patrick and Katharine Kavanagh Fellowship
• Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize.^[6]

See also[]

• List of Irish writers

References[]