Bernard O'Donoghue

Poet and academic

O'Donoghue is an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, where he taught Medieval English and Modern Irish Poetry. He has published six collections of poetry, including Gunpowder, winner of the 1995 Whitbread Prize for Poetry, Farmers Cross (2011) and a verse translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2006).

Because we cannot see into the future,
It follows that what we anticpate
Can’t happen ...

From ‘Kindertotenlieder’ in The Weakness (London: Chatto & Windus, 1991)

The vividest dark green and a gold
To put the newly risen sun to shame.

From ‘The Daughter of Jairus’ in Atlanta Review (Spring/Summer 1998)

Bernard O'Donoghue
by Madeleine Waller
C-type colour print, 10 July 2006
NPG x132074
© Madeleine Waller / National Portrait Gallery, London