Mahon, Derek

Derek Mahon, (born November 23, 1941, Belfast, Northern Ireland—died October 2, 2020, Kinsale, Ireland), Northern Irish poet and translator who explored contemporary themes through verse with classical formal structure.

Mahon studied at Trinity College in Dublin and at the Sorbonne in Paris before teaching in England and the United States. Before returning to Ireland, Mahon lived in London, where he adapted literary texts for British television while working as a poetry editor, reviewer, and theatre critic. He was a contributor to the Irish Times and published a prose collection under the title Journalism in 1996.

His poetry directly acknowledges the influence of Louis MacNeice and W.H. Auden, while critics have identified the influence of ancient Greek and Roman writers as well as European authors that Mahon had translated, including Euripides, Molière, and Racine. Mahon published his first collection, Twelve Poems, in 1965. Other collections include Night-Crossing (1968), The Snow Party (1975), The Hunt by Night (1982), Harbour Lights (2005), Life on Earth (2008), and New Selected Poems (2016).

A highly musical poet, Mahon was drawn to gritty landscapes and desperate scenes of human hardship. Much of the richness of his work lies in his willingness to cultivate deep contrasts of theme and form. One of the most popular Irish writers of any generation, he emerged against the backdrop of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland to influence not only Irish and British poets but also a generation of Scandinavian writers.