Kevin Ireland

Born in Auckland, in 1959 Ireland headed for London where he remained for twenty-five years (with the interlude of a short interval in Bulgaria, translating Bulgarian poetry into English); for two decades, Ireland was employed by The Times.

In 1986, Ireland was writer-in-residence at Canterbury University; in 1987, he was awarded the Grimshaw-Sargeson Fellowship; in 1989, he was the University of Auckland's writing fellow, assistant editor of Quote Unquote, and president of PEN, 1990–91.[2]

Ireland's second wife was Phoebe Caroline Dalwood (1940–2007);[3] Ireland had two sons and lived in Devonport, New Zealand.[1] He re-married in 2012 to Professor Janet Mary Wilson.

Ireland died after a battle with cancer in Auckland, on 19 May 2023, at the age of 89.[4]

• 1979 – New Zealand Book Award for Poetry for Literary Cartoons
• 1990 – New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal
• 1992 – Appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature, in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours[5]
• 2000 – Conferred with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by Massey University[6]
• 2004 – Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement[7]

• Face to Face: Twenty-Four Poems. Pegasus Press. 1963. ISBN 978-1-877577-69-7.
• Educating the Body. Cayton Press. 1967.
• A Letter from Amsterdam. 1972.
• Orchids, Hummingbirds and Other Poems. Auckland University Press. 1974. ISBN 9780196479132.
• A Grammar of Dreams. Wai-te-ata Press. 1975. ISBN 9780465026951.
• Literary Cartoons. 1977.
• The Dangers of Art. 1980. ISBN 9780908599066.
• Practice Night in the Drill Hall: Poems. OUP Australia and New Zealand. 1984. ISBN 9780195581164.
• The Year of the Comet. Islands. 1986. ISBN 0473003775.
• Selected Poems. OUP Australia and New Zealand. 1988. ISBN 978-0195581683.
• Tiberius at the Beehive. Auckland University Press. 1990. ISBN 9781869400439.
• Skinning a fish. Hazard Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0908790777.
• Anzac Day: Selected Poems. Hazard Press. 1997. ISBN 978-1-877161-11-7.
• Fourteen reasons for writing: new poems. Hazard Press. 2001. ISBN 978-1-877270-08-6.
• Walking the land. Hazard Press. 2003. ISBN 978-1-877270-52-9.
• Airports and other wasted days. Hazard Press. 2007. ISBN 9781877393341.
• How to Survive the Morning. Cape Catley. 2008. ISBN 9781877340178.
• Table Talk. 2009.
• Dreamy Days and Nothing Done. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2012. ISBN 978-1-877577-69-7.
• Selected Poems 1963-2013. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2013. ISBN 978-1-927242-16-2.
• Feeding the birds. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2014. ISBN 978-1-927242-81-0.
• Looking out to sea. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2015. ISBN 978-1-927242-92-6.
• Humphry Bogart's great sacrifice. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2016. ISBN 978-0-947493-36-3.
• A fine morning at Passchendaele. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2018. ISBN 978-0-947493-67-7.
• Keeping a grip. Steele Roberts Aotearoa. 2018. ISBN 978-0-94749380-6.
• Shape of the heart. Quentin Wilson Publishing. 2020. ISBN 978-0-9951329-6-2.
• Just like that. Quentin Wilson Publishing. 2022. ISBN 978-0-9951437-3-9.

• "Kevin Ireland", New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre
• Interview with Kevin Ireland for Cultural Icons project. Audio.
• Profile, natlib.govt.nz; accessed 23 September 2015.