Bearings

Joseph Woods is a poet, writer and editor. He has published five books of poetry and his fifth collection, Veld Fires was published by Dedalus Press, 2024. He has edited and co-edited numerous books, most recently Romance Options: Love Poems for Today, Dedalus Press, 2022, with Leeanne Quinn. Over the past dozen years, Woods has lived with his family in Burma, Zimbabwe, Ireland and now, Malawi. He was the longest serving director of Poetry Ireland and is now director of the annual Strokestown International Poetry Festival in Co Roscommon, Ireland. 

Woods cut his teeth with Worple Press who published his first collection Sailing to Hokkaido in 2001, and which won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. They also published Bearings in 2005. He was twice a recipient of the Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship and was jointly awarded with the late Thomas Kabdebo, the Irodalmi Jelen Prize for the translation of Ocean Letters (2012) into Hungarian. 

‘Consule Silvis’ – Seamus Heaney