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Michael Longley was born in Belfast in 1939, and educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Trinity College, Dublin, where he read Classics. His books include Gorse Fires, which won the 1991 Whitbread Prize for Poetry; A Hundred Doors (2011), shortlisted for the 2011 Forward Poetry Prize; and his Collected Poems, which was published in 2006. He was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001, and a CBE in 2010, and recently held the post of Irish Professor of Poetry. He and his wife, the critic Edna Longley, live and work in Belfast.
A keeper of the aristic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders -- Seamus Heaney One of the finest lyric poets of our century -- John Burnside His work indicates one of the gifts of the major poet, of making the one life speak for all, and its corollary, of seeming to be able to speak to anyone -- Sean O'Brien Michael Longley's affectionate metre, his clean-cut and lucid measure, is one of the most distinguished accomplishments in contemporary poetry -- Douglas Dunn While much contemporary verse attempts to sound casual, even offhand, Longley has consistently explored ways of thickening the texture of his idiom. His measured rhythms, skillfully crafted metaphors and elaborate syntax always insist on poetry's origins in ceremony, its powers to commemorate and dignify... His poetry binds the actual and mythical so seamlessly one looks in vain for the joints -- Mark Ford Longley has all the necessary gifts - precision, the celebrant's tongue, and that touch ofmystery that sets certain poets apart -- George Mackay Brown
