Alice Lyons
Alice Lyons was born in Paterson, NJ into an Irish-American family and has lived in Roscommon and Sligo for more than twenty years.
Throughout her career, Lyons has worked to bring poetry and poetry readings into new contexts, media and communities. She is currently supervising construction of Amphitheatre for Introverts (and others) on the shores of Lough Lannagh, Castlebar, a public art work commissioned by Mayo County Council’s Arts Office. Her most recent collection of poetry is The Breadbasket of Europe (Veer Books, London, 2016). Staircase Poems (2006) chronicles Lyons’s yearlong public art project in poetry, history, typography and architecture in the community of Carrick-on- Shannon, County Leitrim, based at its arts centre, The Dock. In 2015, she was among the Irish and international poets invited to contribute to Poetry Ireland Review’s Special Issue on WB Yeats.
Among the honours she has received are a Radcliffe Fellowship in Poetry & New Media, Harvard University; the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry; the inaugural Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill; and an IFTA (Irish Film and Television Award) nomination for The Polish Language, a poetry film she co-directed with fine artist & animator Orla Mc Hardy. Lyons holds a Ph.D. from the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen’s University, Belfast.
Alice Lyons has written two poems for the Opening Ceremony of the Yeats International Summer School.
Wine Street Carpark was written for the opening of the 2018 Summer School.
Reinterment of John Butler Yeats to Drumcliffe Chruchyard was written for the opening of the 2019 Summer School.
