Professor David Wheatley

Biography

I am a poet and critic with particular research interests in the field of twentieth-century and contemporary poetry, Irish literature and Samuel Beckett, and welcome applications from prospective PhD students in these areas.

My most recent poetry collection is The President of Planet Earth (Carcanet/Wake Forest UP, 2017). I have published four previous collections with Gallery Press: Thirst (1997; Rooney Prize for Irish Literature), Misery Hill (2000), Mocker (2006), and A Nest on the Waves (2010). I have also edited the Poems of James Clarence Mangan for Gallery Press (2003) and Samuel Beckett’s Selected Poems 1930-1989 for Faber and Faber (2009). My Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism of Contemporary British Poetry is published by Palgrave in 2014. I have also coedited The Cambridge History of Irish Women's Poetry (2021, Cambridge 2021) with Dr Ailbhe Darcy. 

My work features in various anthologies, including After Ovid: New Metamorphoses (Faber/FSG, 1994), The New Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2004), Identity Parade: New British & Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010), An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry (Harvard UP, 2010), and The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry (2010). I was a judge for the 2015 National Poetry Competition.

My critical work has appeared in numerous edited collections, including The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry (2012), The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry (2013), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (2013), The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry (2007), The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney (2009) and The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (2003).

I was a founding editor of the poetry journal Metre, and have written on poetry for a variety of other journals including London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Poetry, New Statesman, Essays in Criticism, Times Higher Education Supplement, The Irish Times and Poetry Review.

My novel Stretto is published by CB Editions in 2022. 

Current Research

My current research projects include an anthology of Irish poetry, The Wake Forest Irish Poetry Series, vol. 4, for publication in 2017; a volume of poetry, The President of Planet Earth (Carcanet/Wake Forest, 2017); an essay collection, On the Trail of the Night Parrot (Eyewear Publishing, 2017/8); a  translation of Myles na gCopaleen's war-time Irish-language journalism, an anthology of Irish poetry; and continuing work on Samuel Beckett.