Micheal O’Siadhail will perform a poetry reading on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Olson Campus Center on the Luther Seminary campus with a reception and book signing to follow. The reading is free and open to the public.
O’Siadhail was born in 1947 and educated at Clongowes Wood College, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Oslo. He has published 10 collections of poetry and two academic works. His most recent work, “One Crimson Thread,” was published this year and chronicles the final two years of his wife’s life, her death and his grief. He was awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry in 1982 and the Marten Toonder prize for Literature in 1998. His poem suites, “The Naked Flame,” “Summerfest” and “Earlsfort Suite” were commissioned and set to music for performance and broadcasting.
He has given poetry readings and broadcast extensively in Ireland, Britain, Europe and North America. He has been a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, Harvard and Yale. He was a member of the Arts Council of the Republic of Ireland and the Advisory Committee on Cultural Relations. He was a founding member of Aosdána (Academy of distinguished Irish artists) and a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. He was the founding chairman of Ireland Literature Exchange. You can learn more about him at www.osiadhail.com.