JEAN O’BRIEN’s sixth collection, her latest, Stars Burn Regardless, was published by Salmon Poetry in Spring 2022. An award winning poet she has won the highly prestigious Arvon International (UK) and the International Fish Award and been placed, highly commended or listed in many others including the Forward Prize (UK). Most recently she was joint second in the 2021 Irish Trocaire annual poetry award. She was a Patrick Kavanagh fellowship recipient (2017/18) and was the November Poet in Residence in the Centre Culturel Irelandais in Paris. Her work is widely published and anthologized, one of her poems was chosen for National Poetry Day’s Poems on the Dart (Dublin Rail System) and poems on a postcard series by Poetry Ireland. Her work is broadcast regularly on RTE, the National Broadcaster and others. Her work was included in Manchester University’s WRITE Where We Are Now curated by the then British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. She has recently been commissioned to write or had pieces accepted in various publications to commemorate the life and work of poet Eavan Boland who died in 2021. She has tutored in creative writing/poetry in a wide variety of places, including the Republic of Ireland’s only high security prison (male), schools, libraries, travellers’ centres, community centres and in the Irish Writers Centre for the past 18+ years. She runs ongoing classes for the NIC (None Irish Communities) group. She holds an MPhil in creative writing/poetry from Trinity College, Dublin.