Poet Paul Durcan may be best known in this country as a former vocalist for the rock group "Van Morrison," but back in his native Ireland he has been cultivating a large and devoted following for his poetry for more than thirty years. He is the author of seventeen critically acclaimed volumes of poetry, including most recently Cries of an Irish Caveman (2001). Durcan has long been celebrated for a lyrical, freewheeling style that rejoices in the ordinary pleasure of daily life while still fiercely addressing his country's most pressing political concerns. Durcan has also acquired a reputation for being something of a performance artist as well, bringing a wild vibrant energy to his readings that raises them to the level of a dramatic event. But it is Durcan's poetry that has always held the spotlight.

In his most recent collection, Cries of an Irish Caveman (2001), Durcan uses his powers of lyricism and wit to address the themes of love and loss, life and death. In four distinct story-like sections, Durcan relives past relationships and loves, revisits the people, places, and mysteries of his beloved Ireland, meditates on his feelings regarding his daughter's marriage, and in the fourth, widely acclaimed section, recognized by some as his most daring work to date, Durcan bears in its full complexity the brutal, beautiful tale of his own 20th century romance. Said Roger McGough of the Sunday Tribune, "For him poetry is story-telling...Paul Durcan's poetry sings."

His previous works include, Greetings of Our Friends from Brazil (1999), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems (1995), Daddy, Daddy (1990), which won the Whitbread Poetry Prize, The Berlin Wall Cafe (1985), which was selected the Poetry Book Society Choice and regarded by many as his most important work, The Selected Paul Durcan (1982), and Endsville (1967), among others.

In October 1989 he received the Irish American Cultural Institute Poetry Award, and in 1990 he was Writer in Residence at Trinity College, Dublin. He was jointly awarded the Heinemann Bequest, 1995, by the Royal Society for Literature. He is a member of Aosdána and lives in Dublin.

Apart from Britain and Ireland, Durcan has read in the former Yugoslavia, the former Soviet Union, the United States (where in 1985 he was resident poet at the Frost Place, New Hampshire), Canada (including the 1995 Vancouver International Writers Festival), Holland (at the Rotterdam International Poetry Festival), France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Germany and Brazil.