Biography:

Born in Belfast, 1965. He studied at the University of Warwick, gaining a BA in Film and Literature. From there he went to Queen's University Belfast to study for an MA on T.S.Eliot and the French philosopher Jacques Lacan. He has just finished a stint as writer-in-residence at the Albert-Ludwig Universitat, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Wurtemburg, Germany.

His poetry, literary criticism, book reviews and travel writings have been published in English, Irish and American journals. He has published a pamphlet and one previous book of poetry, and has read from his work in Paris, Cambridge, Galway and Belfast. He is at the moment writing an oral history of the Black Forest, and working on many reviews of contemporary authors. He also writes philosophy and enjoys working on the interface between poetry and philosophy.

OUTLINE OF RESEARCH INTERESTS

‘ The poetry and literary criticism of TS Eliot in regard to the writings of Dr Jacques Lacan’ looks at TS Eliot’s poetry in regard to character types drawn from Lacan’s writings, and viewed from the perspective of Freud’s adumbration of the Oedipus Complex.

At present I intend to complete the MA thesis as a PhD thesis, extending Lacanian notions of language and their relation to the character types divulged in the MA, and to further link Eliot to other Post-Modernist theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. I have also written introductions to Film Studies subjects, such as German Expressionism and The Western, and have plans to write other works on film. Further contingent research includes a proposed study on the German novelist Gunther Grass.

PUBLICATIONS

9.92 TS Eliot’s The Death of Saint Narcissus. Article/essay relating TS Eliot’s poem The Death of Saint Narcissus to Lacanian archetypes in Essays in Poetics, University of Keele.
9.934TS Eliot’s Circe’s Palace and On a Portrait. Article/essay relating other early TS Eliot poems to Lacanian types in Essays in Poetics, University of Keele, also published in The Symptom.
Further essays from this thesis excerpted and published in NYCBigCityLit, Transference, The Symptom - a journal of Lacan studies, A Chides Alphabet.
08.03 T.S.Eliot’s Post-Modern Complaint (PostPressed, Australia) book based on my Phd thesis
3.92 Poetry pamphlet The New Life (Lapwing Publications) published in Belfast, readings in Belfast, Galway, Cambridge and Paris. Also poems published in the following journals: Bark (Belfast), Gown Literary Supplement (Belfast), The Cutting Room (South Yorkshire Writer), Hybrid, The Haiku Quarterly, Envoi, First Time (Sussex), The Hammer (Belfast), Exile (Suffolk), Presence, The Bad Poetry Quarterly, Never Bury Poetry, Connections, Krax., Poetry Now, Time Haiku, Fire, The Journal. Iota, Poetry Scotland, Black Mountain Review, Curlew, The Quarterly Muse, The Honest Ulsterman (as Mephisto), Braquemard, Buzzwords, Marginalia (supplement of Monas Heiroglyphia), Scintilla, The Black Rose, Worm, The Purple Rose, Hermes, Markings, Eclipse, Current Accounts, Brittle Star, Erratica, Minotaur (USA), das frohliche wohnzimmer (Wien), Orbis
E-Zines: Seeker Magazine (USA), Baker Street (USA), Can We HaveOurBall Back? (USA) The Poetrycan (England), BigCityLit (USA), Aileron (USA), Cordite (Australia), Transference (UK), Poetry Hood (USA), Sugar Mule, (USA), Marxist Cultural Logic (UK), Snakeskin (UK), Transference (UK), BathHouse (USA)
10.96. Review of Brendan McMahon’s Enemy Lines (University of Salzburg Press) in The Haiku Quarterly and The Honest Ulsterman.
01.98. Book of poetry entitled In the Luxembourg Gardens (University of Salzburg Press, Salzburg, Austria)
08.98 Review of Milan Kundera’s novel Identity (Faber & Faber) in The Honest Ulsterman, review of Michael Hofmann’s Approximately Nowhere (Faber & Faber) in The Haiku Quarterly and The Honest Ulsterman
07.99 Review of Gunther Grass’ Selected Poetry (Faber & Faber) in The Honest Ulsterman + Review of Adrien Henri’s The World’s my Lobster (Bloomsbury) in The Honest Ulsterman + 07.99 Review of Joan Maizel’s Stepping Gently (Bumblebee Press) in The Honest Ulsterman.
05.00 Book of poetry Letter to Milan Kundera (published by Ygdrasill, online e-zine)
08.00 Review of Ian M Emberson Natural Light (Fighting Cock Press) and Bill Pickard Half a Ton: Selected Poems (Samson Press) in The Poet’s Voice (Poetry Salzburg), review of Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf (Faber & Faber) in The Haiku Quarterly
01.01 Review of The Cambridge Companion to Womans’ Writing, (Cambridge University Press) ed. ,Lorna Sage, in The Honest Ulsterman
Edited e-zine THE ENGINE (www.theengine.net)
Travel writing published in The Honest Ulsterman, The Idiot of the Family: Reflections on the Sicilian Mafia, under pen name Mephisto, also Notes on Post-Francoite Spain, Germany’s Heart of Darkness, Attic Nights (published in Erratica Magazine, England, Transatlantico, Italy), Der Vergangenheit (Published in Baker Street 8), Malta, Macedonian Moonlight (published in Seeker Magazine), Up the Republic! (Notes on North-Central Spain - published in Seeker Magazine), The Brothel Keepers Daughters, reflections on European Brothels (published in Transference).
11.01 Wagner - an Irish Perspective
01.02 Reviews of films From Hell and The Lord of the Rings (Antipodium e-zine, Australia)
02.02 Reviews of film A Beautiful Mind and TV documentary The Boy Can’t Help It for DIAL Magazine, London + article on radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza
I have had encouraging discussions of an informal nature with regard to publishing a book based on my M.A. thesis with Cambridge University Press.

GALLERY EXHIBITIONS

Small exhibitions in Cafe Litfass, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-W, Germany, internet gallery, Via Guelfa, Firenze, Toscana, Italia. Also work in art etc Belfast.