Edward Larrissy was born in 1950 in Chelmsford, England, of an Irish father and English mother. He was educated at Hornchurch Grammar School and Wadham College, Oxford. Between 1999 and 2007 he was Professor of English at the University of Leeds, and between 2007 and 2013 Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. While at Leeds he won funding to enhance the holdings in poetry in the Special Collections of the Brotherton Library under the heading ‘Leeds Poetry: 1950-1980.’ The title reflected a concentration on the lively poetic scene at Leeds University in those years, in which poets such as Tony Harrison, James Simmons, Brendan Kennelly, Jon Silkin and Geoffrey Hill were occasional or more long-lasting presences. At Queen’s he was affiliated to the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, chairing its Advisory Board for one year. His poems have appeared in Sycamore Press Broadsheets, The Anglo-Welsh Review, the TLS, The Independent, The Observer, Green River Review, The Faber Book of Science, Speak to the Hills: An Anthology of Twentieth Century British and Irish Mountain Poetry, Poetry Proper and Poetry Ireland Review. A selection of his poetry, The Stories, was published as an e-chapbook by Argotist in 2012. He now lives in the Languedoc region of southern France.
