Maurice Riordan is an Irish poet, translator, and editor. Born in Lisgoold, County Cork

County Cork

County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Riordan has published three collections of poetry: A Word from the Loki (1995), a largely London-based collection which was a Poetry Book Society

Poetry Book Society

The Poetry Book Society was founded by T. S. Eliot and friends in 1953. Each quarter the Society selects one recently published collection of poetry for its members. The Society also publishes the quarterly poetry journal Bulletin, and it administers the competition for the annual T. S. Eliot Prize...

 Choice and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize

T. S. Eliot Prize

The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is awarded by the Poetry Book Society to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Prize was inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in...

; Floods (2000) which took a more millennial tone, and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award; and The Holy Land (2007) which contains a sequence of Idylls or prose poems and returns to Riordan's Irish roots more directly than his earlier work. It received the Michael Hartnett Award.

He is a prolific editor and his anthologies include A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems about Science (2000), a collaboration with Jon Turney, an anthology of ecological poems Wild Reckoning (2004) edited with John Burnside

John Burnside

John Burnside is a Scottish writer, born in Dunfermline.-Background:Burnside studied English and European Languages at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. A former computer software engineer, he has been a freelance writer since 1996...

, and Dark Matter (2008) edited with astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell, DBE, FRS, FRAS , is a British astrophysicist. As a postgraduate student she discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish. She was president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and was interim president...

. He has also edited a selection of poems by Hart Crane

Hart Crane

-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...

 (2008) in Faber's 'Poet to Poet' series.

He has translated the work of Maltese poet Immanuel Mifsud

Immanuel Mifsud

Immanuel Mifsud is a writer of poetry and prose, born in Paola, Malta. He was for a time involved in research theatre. He wrote six collections of short stories, six poetry collections, and also children stories.- Prose work :...

 as Confidential Reports (2005). In the same year he released a collection for children entitled The Moon Has Written You a Poem, adapted from the Portuguese of José Letria.

In 2004 he was selected as one of the Poetry Society

Poetry Society

The Poetry Society is a membership organisation, open to all, whose stated aim is "to promote the study, use and enjoyment of poetry".The Society was founded in London in February 1909 as the Poetry Recital Society, becoming the Poetry Society in 1912...

's 'Next Generation' poets. He was Poetry Editor of Poetry London

Poetry London

Poetry London is a London-based literary periodical. As Poetry London: A Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism it was founded by Tambimuttu and the first issue was dated January/February 1939.In a new form the magazine is still in print....

from 2005 to 2009.

Maurice Riordan has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths College

Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom which specialises in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute...

 and at Imperial College and is currently Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield Hallam University is a higher education institution in South Yorkshire, England, based on two sites in Sheffield. City Campus is located in the city centre, close to Sheffield railway station, and Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away, adjacent to Ecclesall Road in...

. He also works with amateur poets through the Arvon Foundation

Arvon Foundation

The Arvon Foundation is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which promotes creative writing. It is based in the Free Word Centre for literature, literacy and free expression in London.-History:...

and The Poetry School. He lives in South London.