David McLoghlin was born in Dublin in 1972, and spent his primary school education in Brussels and Connecticut. In 1985 he returned to Ireland. He has since lived in Spain and France, travelled in Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, and lived in Brooklyn, NY for 10 years, returning to Ireland in 2020. He was educated at University College, Dublin and at New York University’s Creative Writing Program. A third culture kid, fluent in Spanish and galego, conversant in French and Portuguese, he is a poet, writer of creative nonfiction and occasional literary translator. His three books are Waiting for Saint Brendan and Other Poems (2012), Santiago Sketches (2017) and Crash Centre (May 2024), all with Salmon Poetry. His pamphlets (chapbooks) are Sign Tongue. which won the Good Morning Menagerie Chapbook-in-Translation Prize in 2014 (translations from the work of Chilean poet Enrique Winter), and The Magic Door (Blue Canary Press, Milwaukee, 1993). He is one of three contributors to Suns, a pamphlet of translations from E. Winter (Cardboard House Press, 2017). David’s writing has been broadcast on WNYC’s Radiolab, published extensively in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and anthologised in Ireland and the USA. He has received support and recognition from the Arts Council, The Patrick Kavanagh Awards, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and New York University, where he was a Goldwater Teaching Fellow. He is also a Pushcart Nominee. He has attended artists’ retreats at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig several times, and mentored and taught creative writing and literature at Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, University College, Dublin, New York University, Coler Specialty Hospital, and Hunts Point Alliance for Children in the South Bronx, where he was Resident Writer. Between 2013 and 2016 he curated and ran The Eagle and the Wren reading series in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, hosting almost 150 writers. He has read and taught at West Cork Literary Festival, Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, The Irish Writers’ Centre, The Lillian Vernon Creative Writers’ House, Cornelia Street Café poetry reading and Franklin Park Reading Series, amongst many other venues. Most recently, he taught extensively with Poetry as Commemoration during 2023 across Munster, and has taught Creative Writing and literature at The American College, Dublin, memoir at The Center for Fiction, and facilitated creative writing workshops with The Unfinished Book of Poetry scheme for secondary school students, as well as Poetry Ireland’s Writer's in Schools initiative. He also provides editorial advice to poets and writers of creative nonfiction. He lives in Cork with his family.

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Recognition

2023: Recipient of a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship.

2023: One of two Irish poets added to the Versopolis European platform for 2023.

2018: Winner of the Open category of the Voices of War International Poetry Competition for the poem “Dispatch“.

2015: Prize-winning finalist in The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize (now The Moth International Poetry Prize), judged by Billy Collins, for the poem “Tom Crean Sings Sean-nós at the Tiller in the Southern Ocean”.

2014: Winner of the inaugural Goodmorning Menagerie Chapbook-in-Translation Prize for Sign Tongue.

2011: The Howard Nemerov Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

2011-2012: Goldwater Teaching Fellow at New York University.

2008: Second Prize in The Patrick Kavanagh Awards for a section of Waiting for Saint Brendan.

2008: Winner of the English section of the Frances Browne Multilingual Poetry Prize.

2008: Selected, Poetry Ireland’s Introductions reading series and master class for emerging poets.

2007: Awarded a Kerry County Council Bursary to attend an artists’ retreat at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig.

2006: Awarded an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Literature Bursary (€10,000).

Mentors and Teachers 

I am lucky to have worked with some great teachers and writers. Before attending New York University for my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, I was mentored by the poets Pearse Hutchinson, John Liddy and James Liddy. Later, at NYU I studied with Anne Carson, Sharon Olds, Kimiko Hahn, Rachel Zucker, Breyten Breytenbach, and with David Lipsky and Lawrence Weschler in the craft of fiction and nonfiction. I also attended individual consultations with Yusef Komunyakaa and Marie Howe, who provided invaluable writing advice. Sharon Olds supervised my MFA thesis, which was published as part of my first poetry collection, Waiting for Saint Brendan and Other Poems

Photo by L. Atencia