Mark Roper

Mark Roper was born in Derbyshire in 1951, and brought up in North London. He went to a boarding school in Surrey, to university in Reading and Oxford, and lived and worked in Sussex, Swansea and other parts of London. In 1980 he moved to County Kilkenny with his partner Jane. At first they shared a cottage with friends, then bought a cottage of their own in Tobernabrone, where they’ve lived happily ever since. His collections include The Hen Ark (Peterloo/Salmon 1990), which won the 1992 Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection; Catching The Light (Peterloo/Lagan 1997); a chapbook, The Home Fire (Abbey Press 1998) and Whereabouts (Peterloo/Abbey Press 2005). He was Editor of Poetry Ireland for 1999. Even So: New & Selected Poems was published by the Dedalus Press in autumn 2008.