Joseph Woods

Joseph Woods was born in Drogheda in 1966. He studied biology and chemistry and, latterly, poetry, holds an MA in Poetry, and has worked as a chemist, a teacher and as director of studies in a language school. Since 2001, he has been director of Poetry Ireland. Widely travelled, he has lived in Japan and Asia. For his first book Sailing to Hokkaido (2001), he received the Patrick Kavanagh Award. This was followed by Bearings in 2005. In 2010 Dedalus Press reissued these two books in a single volume entitled Cargo. He co-edited Our Shared Japan (Dedalus, 2007), an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry relating to that country.