David Wheatley was born in Dublin in 1970. He is the author of five previous collections of poetry, including The President of Planet Earth (Carcanet, 2017) and various other books including a novel, Stretto (CB Editions, 2022); he has also coedited with Ailbhe Darcy The Cambridge History of Irish Women’s Poetry (Cambridge UP, 2021). He lives in rural Aberdeenshire with his family.
'Learned by never dry, always witty and surprising, Wheatley scampers through the arts, music, painting and history in this big bazaar of a book'
Claire Crowther, Poetry London
'These are poems unable to live off a single set of roots; they continually open up to new ways of scrutinising an environment of which we are both analysts and integral parts.'
TLS
'Fluent, smart, slightly arch, good company.'
Irish Times
'Gracefully meditative...a Chatterton-esque literary discovery of old, albeit with references to Bob Geldof and Alka-Seltzer.'
Literary Review
'This is a book I've been looking forward to for a long time, and it does not disappoint. Wheatley is one of our most original poet-critics, and the serious range of his enthusiasms is evident in the many forms, voices, histories and horizons here, from Lucretian couplets and Irish lament to the tragi-comic decadence of Baudelaire and the witty 'avant-gardening' of Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. Like an 'idling docker's flourish on the spoons', Wheatley makes music from the throwaway moment, and in this big, rich, satirical, lyrical volume draws it all into a virtuoso performance.'
Jeremy Noel-Tod
'Wheatley's is poetry of displacement, uncertainty and sheer possibility.'
Guardian
Awards won by David Wheatley
Commended, 2023 A Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation
(Child Ballad)
Short-listed, 2018 Irish Times Poetry Now Award (The President of Planet Earth)
