Jean O’Brien has five published collections and two chapbooks, her latest, Fish on a Bicycle, New & Selected (Salmon 2016) was reprinted in 2018.
O’Brien’s work broaches hard subjects without fear or compromise, she deals with illness, mental illness, women’s issues, nature and everything in between. With her directness of approach her poems are often strongly narrative and are always alert to the comic and everyday even when dealing with hard subjects.
She has won and been placed in many awards including the prestigious Arvon International Award (winner in 2010) The Fish International Award (Winner) The Forward Prize (Highly Commended) Voices of War (Shortlisted) and others. In 2017 she was awarded a Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowhip. Her poetry has received Arts Council support, she was awarded a Travel & Training Grant to Texas where she collaborated with the renowned artist Dixie Friend Gay. She has been awarded stays in Annaghmakerrigh artists retreat and in the Tin Jug retreat. She was also awarded an Aer Lingus Arts Flight and support for various Festivals she appeared in. She collaborated with the artist Ray Murphy for a series called Merman after her award-winning poem of the same name.
She has read in places such as Sin E and the Nuyorican in New York, The Irish embassy in Maylasia and London and in T.S. Rogers College in Texas as well as appearing in Diverse Dialogues along with artist Dixie Friend Gay also in Texas.
She has appeared in many festivals including the Cork International Festival, Laois Leaves Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, An Cuirt, Dublin Book Festival, The Dromineer Festival amongst others. In conjunction with the Centre for Creative Practices (CFCP) and the Polish Embassy she took part in the tribute reading in the Lir Theatre in Dublin for deceased Nobel Laureate Wislaw Szmborska.
Her work is widely published and regularly broadcast on the National Radio Station RTE 1, Rattlebag, Arena and Words Lightly Spoken with Olivia O’Leary and various local radio. Her work was videoed for University College Dublin’s Special Collection for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive. Her work is regularly anthologised including most recently Reading the Future (Ed. Alan Hayes), Metamorphic: 21st century poets respond to Ovid Eds. Nessa O’Mahony and Paul Munden, Eavan Boland: Inside History (eds. Siobhan Campbell and Nessa O’Mahony), The Enchanting Verses (Irish ed. Patrick Cotter), The Windharp, Poems of Ireland since 1916 (ed Niall MacMonagle), If You Ever Go, One City One Book (Eds. Pat Boran, Gerard Smyth), Even The Daybreak - 35 years of Salmon Poetry (Ed Jessie Lendennie).
She holds an M. Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College,in Dublin, and she tutors at postgraduate level for an American University, (both on-line and in person) where her work is also taught and is/was taught in University College Galway. She has tutored in the Irish Writers Centre, Ireland’s High Security Prison, Community Centres, Libraries and for Dublin City Council and has worked with Irish Traveller Community.
You can check out her work at www.jeanobrien.ie