BIOGRAPHY
I was born in Coleraine and educated in Belfast. I hold degrees in physics from Queen’s University, Belfast. I was Professor of Physics in Trinity College, Dublin until retirement in 2013. I am now Fellow Emeritus at Trinity.
I have published three collections of poetry with Dedalus Press, ‘The King of Suburbia’ in 2005, ‘Safe House’ in 2010 and ‘The Eyes of Isaac Newton’ in 2017. A poetic biography of the 19th century Irish mathematician, ‘A Mystic Dream of 4’, was published by Quaternia Press in 2013. ‘The King of Suburbia’ won the inaugural Glen Dimplex New Writers Award for Poetry. Other awards include the Hennessy Award for Poetry and The Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary. I have presented my poetry at writers’ festivals in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Australasia.
My poetry is characterised by form & rhyme and occasional humour; it also reflects my professional career as a physicist. I am interested in the common ground between Science and Literature and have written and lectured on this theme.
Awards
Residency at Heinrich Böll Cottage 2019
Residency at Varuna: The National Writers Centre of Australia 2016
Alexander von Humboldt Stipendium in Physics & Poetry at Erlangen University 2015
Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency 2012
Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary 2006
Glen Dimplex New Writers Award for Poetry 2006
Hennessy Literary Award, Sunday Tribune New Irish Writing 1996
McCrea Literary Award for 1993/94, University of Ulster at Coleraine
Collections
The Eyes of Isaac Newton, The Dedalus Press 2017
A Mystic Dream of 4, Quaternia Press 2013
Safe House, The Dedalus Press 2010
The King of Suburbia, The Dedalus Press 2005
Other publications
‘Strange Meeting: Science Meets Poetry’ in Poetry Ireland Review 108 2012
20|12: Twenty Irish Poets Respond to Science in Twelve Lines ed: Iggy McGovern (Dedalus Press cum Quaternia Press 2012)
Science Meets Poetry 3 ed: Jean- Patrick Connerade & Iggy McGovern (Euroscience 2012)
‘Science and Poetry – not so different?’ in On Science & Literature (Four Courts Press 2007)
Appointments
Judge of Roscommon Poetry competition, Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2019
Judge of Edgeworthstown Literary Festival Poetry competitions 2017
Judge (with Michael Schmidt) of Strokestown International Poetry Prize 2012
Distinguished Fellow (Physics & Poetry), La Trobe University 2006
Writer in residence, Rathlin Island, 2004
Visiting Fellow (Physics & Poetry), Magdalen College, Oxford 1998
International Festival Readings
StAnza Poetry Festival, Scotland 2018
PoetryFest, Irish Arts Center NYC 2017
Varuna – Sydney Writers Festival 2016
John Hewitt International Summer School, Armagh 2015
Science Meets Poetry 4, ESOF 2014, Copenhagen 2014
Physics and Literature, Erlangen 2014
Poesie et Prose, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris 2013
Strokestown Poetry Festival 2013
Science Meets Poetry 3, Euroscience Open Forum 2012
Poetry Hearings, Berlin 2010
Australian Poetry Festival, Sydney 2010
Yeats Festival (Irl), 2007, 2010
Auckland Writers and Readers Festival (NZ), 2009
Ledbury Poetry Festival (UK), June 2007
Melbourne Writers Festival (Aus), 2006
Christchurch Writers Festival (NZ), 2006
Tasmanian Poetry Festival (Aus), 2006
Other International Readings
Trieste Joyce School, Trieste 2014
Writers Centre, Bethesda 2013
Alchemy, Prague, 2011
The Bookworm, Beijing 2010
NZ Poetry Society,Wellington 2010
Irish Studies, Otago University, Dunedin 2009
Christchurch Arts (with Michael Harlow), 2009
The Art Bar, Toronto,2008
Ireland House, New York, 2008
Villanova University, Philadelphia, 2008
Online
‘The Making of A Mystic Dream of 4; Bridges 2019 Conference Proceedings http://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2019/bridges2019-29.pdf
‘The Debris of History. On Waste and the Past in Irish Celtic Tiger Poetry, by Daniel Becker. https://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/5730
04.09.18 Schroedinger@75 Rhymes & Reflections https://vimeo.com/290309573
Nessa O’Mahoney interview in The Attic Sessions #21 http://theatticsessions.tv/the-attic-sessions-21-in-conversation-with-iggy-mcgovern/
Caitriona O’Reilly reviews The Eyes of Isaac Newton in The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/poetry-competing-in-the-ghastly-attention-economy-1.3349642
Kay Sheehy interview on RTE Arena 11th January https://player.fm/series/rt-arena-podcast/the-eyes-of-isaac-newton-by-iggy-mcgovern
Connecting Seamus Heaney’s iconic poem ‘Lightenings viii’ with the optical effect known as the ocean mirage. https://www.seamusheaney.com/news-and-events/2018/1/4/out-of-the-marvellous.
Tools To Open Our Eyes, Feile na Bealtaine 2018, Dingle Co Kerry. https://soundcloud.com/user-78861479/tools-to-open-our-eyes-recording
14.11.17 Launch of ‘The Eyes of Isaac Newton’ https://vimeo.com/244718768
14.06.16 www.iopblog.org/history-of-physics-group-becomes-well-versed-on-william-rowan-hamilton
25.03.16 ‘The Book On One’ RTE Radio 1 http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradiowebpage.html#!rii=9%3A10548247%3A17%3A25%2D03%2D2016%3A
02.03.16 ‘Science Meets Poetry’ Poetry Ireland at Books Upstairs https://vimeopro.com/shallowfocus/poems-upstairs-science-meets-poetry
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/poetry-and-science/interviews/
28.01.16 https://vimeopro.com/shallowfocus/mysticdreamof4
12.01.16 http://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.ca/2016/01/a-sonnet-for-wrhamilton.html
10.01.16 http://www.drb.ie/essays/doing-the-locomotion
20.12.15 http://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.ie/2015/12/who-put-pie-in-pythagoras.html
13.12.15 http://www.rte.ie/radio1/sunday-miscellany/programmes/2015/1213/752897-sunday-miscellany-sunday-13-december-2015/
27.10.15 Science and Poetry – not so different? Erlangen Universitaet http://elinas.fau.de/videoSites/lndw15.html#imcgovern
21.03.15 The Poetry Programme featured the Crazy Dog recording of ‘The Bony’ http://www.rte.ie/radio1/the-poetry -programme/programmes/2015/0321/688505-the-poetry-programme-saturday-21-march-2015/
26.02.15 A Mystic Dream of 4, Pearse Street Library (w. Paula Murphy & Noel Duffy) http://www.dublincity.ie/story/poetry-reading-iggy-mcgovern-podcast-0
05.11.14 The Lab, Foley St Dublin (with Luke Drury) see http://vimeo.com/111720266
02.11.14 Sunday Feature: Science and Poetry BBC Radio 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n2zcp
27.06.14 http://dublinsouthfm.ie/shows/79/Rhyme-and-Reason
30.05.14 Inaugural ELINAS Conference, Erlangen http://elinas.fau.de/videoSites/inauguralVideos.html#mcgovernr
17.03.14 http://contrappassomag.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/from-issue-4-writings-in-memory-of-seamus-heaney-iggy-mcgovern/
13.05.13 http://thepoetryproject.ie/poems/until-the-end-anne-ffrench-the-irish-poem-is-iggy-mcgovern/
22.01.12 http://www.writing.ie/guest-blogs/interview-with-poet-iggy-mcgovern/
http://www.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/download/14307/13744 The Language of Globalization in Contemporary Irish Poetry by B Keatinge
circa 2000 http://web.mit.edu/fnl/vol/131/hildebidle.htm
General Events
Poetry Ireland at Electric Picnic 2011
John Hewitt Birthday Celebrations ‘Festival Nights’ BBC 2 Television, 2010
Seamus Heaney 70th Birthday Celebration, RTE Radio 1, 2009
‘Science and Poetry – polar opposites or not so different?’, Irish Literary & Historical Society of San Francisco, 2009
Visiting Poet, Camphill Greenacres Special Needs Community, Dublin 2007
‘Poems of Science (and scientists)’, British Association Festival of Science, Dublin 2005
Programme notes for the Rough Magic production of “Improbable Frequency” 2004
Physics Advisor to the Rough Magic production of ‘Copenhagen’, Project Arts 2002
‘Magdalen Sonnets’. presented to The President of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1999
‘Hammer & Spark, a memory of E T S Walton’, presented to President Mary Robinson, 1997
Anthologies
The Word Ark – a pocket book of animal poems (Dedalus 2020)
Open-Eyed, Full-Thr oated: An Anthology of American/Irish Poets, (Arlen House 2019)
Reading The Future: New Writing from Ireland (Arlen House 2018)
Metamorphic: 21st Century Poets Respond to Ovid (Recent Work Press 2017)
Verbal Sun: Poems for the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (Liberties Press, 2016)
Windharp – Poems of Ireland since 1916 (ed. Niall MacMonagle, Penguin Ireland 2015)
All to Play For – 99 Poems about Sport (ed. John McAuliffe, Poetry Ireland 2015)
La Memoria Esparcida (trans. Gerardo Gambolini, Detodoslosmares 2015)
Funny Ha-Ha Funny Peculiar (ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe 2015)
Berryman’s Fate: Reception and Redress (ed. Philip Coleman, Arlen House, 2014)
Taking The Plunge – New Writing from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council 2014)
If Ever You Go – a map of Dublin in Poetry & Song (Dedalus 2014)
The Lighter Craft: Poems for Peter Denman (Astrolabe, 2013)
Windows 20 Years (Windows Publications, 2012)
Shine On: Irish Writers for Shine (ed. Pat Boran, Dedalus, 2011)
Dogs Singing (ed. Jessie Lendennie, Salmon 2010)
The Quiet Quarter: Ten Years of Great Irish Writing (New Island Press 2009)
Száz ír vers élő költőktől (trans. Tamas Kabdebo, Argumentum, 2009)
A Treasury of Sunday Miscellany (ed. Marie Heaney, New Island Press 2009)
Ireland’s Other Poetry: From Anonymous to Zozimus (Lilliput Press 2007)
Wingspan (ed. Pat Boran, Dedalus 2006)
P is for Poetry (ed. Seamus Cashman, O’Brien Press 2005 and 2008)
Ierse Poezie (selected by Nessa O’Mahoney, de brake hond 2002)
Off The Wall (ed. Niall MacMonagle,Marino 2002)
Unacknowledged Legislators: thirty years of Fortnight poetry (2001)
Magdalen Poets (ed. Robert MacFarlane, Magdalen College 1999)
Poetry Now Anthology (ed. Patrick Galvin, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown CoCo 1997)
Real cool – poems to grow up with (ed. Niall MacMonagle, Marino 1994)
Iggy McGovern – Poet and Physicist 