Kevin Ireland

Ireland was born Kevin Mark Jowsey in Auckland on 18 July 1933. As an infant he travelled to London with his parents where they lived for a time before returning to New Zealand. Shortly thereafter, his parents' marriage failed and he grew up on his maternal grandfather's Waikato farm, and then in Takapuna where he lived with his father. After leaving school, he studied at Auckland Teachers' College but did not complete a qualification.{{cite web |url=https://www.anzliterature.com/feature/interview-kevin-ireland/ |title=The interview – Kevin Ireland |publisher=Academy of New Zealand Literature |access-date=19 May 2023}}

After changing his surname by deed poll to Ireland in 1957,{{cite web |url=https://collections.archives.govt.nz/web/arena/search#/entity/aims-archive/R26180070/ |title=Deed Poll changing surname. Kevin Mark Ireland (Jowsey) |publisher=Archives New Zealand |access-date=19 May 2023}} he headed to London in 1959 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 the University of Canterbury; in 1987, he was awarded the Sargeson Fellowship; in 1989, he was the University of Auckland's writing fellow, assistant editor of Quote Unquote, and president of PEN, 1990–91.[http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/irelandkevin.html Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022142754/http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/irelandkevin.html |date=22 October 2016 }}, bookcouncil.org.nz; accessed 23 September 2015.

Ireland's first wife was Bulgarian film critic Donna Marinova whom he met and wed in Sofia in 1959 [https://www.thepost.co.nz/culture/350013260/kevin-ireland-look-back-late-poets-great-legacy]. After he spent 20 months in Bulgaria, the Communist authorities allowed Donna to leave the country and the young family moved to London. Ten years later they divorced.

Ireland's second wife was Phoebe Caroline Dalwood (1940–2007);{{Cite web|date=1940-01-01|title=Ireland, Phoebe Caroline, active 1940-2005|url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22450433|access-date=2020-08-06|website=Ireland, Phoebe Caroline, active 1940... {{!}} Items {{!}} National Library of New Zealand {{!}} National Library of New Zealand|language=en}} Ireland had two sons and lived in Devonport, New Zealand. 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.{{cite web |last1=Waiwri-Smith |first1=Lyric |title=Kevin Ireland, award-winning Kiwi poet and writer, dies at 89: 'Going gently into the wild night' |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/300878887/kevin-ireland-awardwinning-kiwi-poet-and-writer-dies-at-89-going-gently-into-the-wild-night |website=Stuff |access-date=18 May 2023}}

• 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{{London Gazette |issue=52953 |date=13 June 1992 |page=30 |supp=2}}
• 2000 – Conferred with an honorary Doctor of Literature degree by Massey University{{cite web |title=Honorary degree citations |url=https://tamiro.massey.ac.nz/nodes/view/12233 |publisher=Massey University |access-date=29 November 2021}}
• 2004 – Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement{{cite web|url=http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/en/results-of-our-work/award-winners/prime-minister-s-awards-for-literary-achievement|title=Previous winners|publisher=Creative New Zealand|accessdate=24 October 2013}}

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

• {{cite book| title=Sleeping With the Angels | publisher=Penguin Books| year=1995| isbn=978-0-14-024497-7 }}

• {{cite book|title=Blowing My Top|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1996|isbn=978-0-14-025645-1}}
• {{cite book|title=The Man Who Never Lived|publisher=Vintage|year=1997|isbn= 9781869413255}}
• {{cite book|title=The Craymore Affair|publisher=Vintage|year=2000|isbn=1869414268}}
• {{cite book|title=Getting Away With It|publisher=Hazard|year=2004|isbn= 9781877270796}}
• {{cite book|title=The Jigsaw Chronicles|publisher=Cape Catley|year=2008|isbn= 9781877340154}}
• {{cite book|title=Daisy Chains|publisher=David Ling|year=2010|isbn= 9781877378393}}

• {{cite book|title=The New Zealand Collection: A Celebration of the New Zealand Novel|publisher=Random House|year=1990|isbn= 9781869540074}}

• {{cite book|title=Under the bridge and over the moon|publisher=Vintage|year=1998|isbn=978-1-86941-363-7}}
• {{cite book|title=Backwards to forwards: a memoir|publisher=Vintage|year=2002|isbn=978-1-86941-499-3}} Translated into Bulgarian and published in 2024 by Europe and the World Foundation in Sofia, Bulgaria https://evropaworld.eu/memoarite-na-kevin-ajarland-veche-sa-dostapni-za-balgarskite-chitateli/
• {{cite book|title=A Month at the Back of My Brain: A Third Memoir|publisher=Quentin Wilson|year=2022|isbn=978-1-99-110306-2}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/name-202042.html "Kevin Ireland", New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre]
• [http://culturalicons.co.nz/episode/kevin-ireland Interview with Kevin Ireland] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110207101804/http://culturalicons.co.nz/episode/kevin-ireland |date=7 February 2011 }} for [http://culturalicons.co.nz/ Cultural Icons] project. Audio.
• [http://natlib.govt.nz/items?i%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=Poets&i%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=Ireland%2C+Kevin+Mark%2C+1933- Profile], natlib.govt.nz; accessed 23 September 2015.
• {{discogs artist|Kevin Ireland (2)}}

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Category:1933 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:Deaths from cancer in New Zealand

Category:New Zealand poets

Category:New Zealand male poets

Category:Writers from Auckland

Category:New Zealand Officers of the Order of the British Empire