Justin Quinn was born in Dublin, and educated there at Trinity College (BA & PhD). With David Wheatley, he was a founding editor of the Irish poetry magazine, Metre. His translations of the Czech poet Petr Borkovec, From the Interior, appeared in 2008 from Seren. He also lectures at the Department of English, Faculty of Education, University of West Bohemia. In 2017 his translations of Bohuslav Reynek, The Well at Morning: Selected Poems, 1925-1971, were published by Karolinum, with essays by Martin C. Putna and Jiří Šerých (read a sample). His translations of Jan Zábrana’s poetry, The Lesser Histories, were published in 2022 by Karolinum/University of Chicago Press. Some of these have been published in BODY, the Fortnightly Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, LitHub, and the New York Review of Books; an excerpt from the afterword appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
With Gabriela Klečková, he edited Anglophone Literature in Second-Language Teacher Education: Curriculum Innovation through Intercultural Communication (Routledge, 2021). It is based on the new program at the English Dept of the Faculty of Education at the University of West Bohemia.
He has published seven collections of poetry; Tomáš Fürstenzeller translated his work into Czech (Vlny a stromy; Opus, 2009). A novel, Mount Merrion (Penguin), was published in 2013; it was translated by his wife, Tereza Límanová, into Czech and published by Argo in 2015. He has written essays occasionally for the Dublin Review (Landscape and Memory in the Sudetens, The Cabinet: A House in Prague). He gave a talk at TEDx Plzeň about translating – and being translated by – poetry.
He contributed translations to the forthcoming End of the World: Poetry and Prose, by Ivan M. Jirous (Karolinum/U of Chicago Press). His last book of poems, Shallow Seas, was published by Gallery Press in 2020. In this video, he reads, Child of Prague, a poem from the book. He wrote an essay, A Blaze to the Bear, about a walk from Černošice to Beroun, in honor of David Wheatley’s fiftieth birthday; it was published online in August 2020.
An essay, entitled Ghosts and Neighbours, about the seventeen-minute walk from his apartment to the Metro, appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of the Dublin Review.
His past-times include taichi, learning Irish, and walking. He is married to the writer and artist Tereza Límanová.
Academic Books
Between Two Fires: Transnationalism and Cold War Poetry (Oxford UP, 2015); Czech translation (2018), translated by Martin Pokorný (Charles University Press , 2018)
Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000 (Cambridge UP, 2008)
American Errancy: Empire, Sublimity and Modern Poetry (UCD Press, 2005)
read the chapter on Thom Gunn; read the chapter on Allen Ginsberg
Gathered Beneath the Storm: Wallace Stevens, Nature and Community (UCD Press, 2002)
As editor:
With Gabriela Kleckova, Anglophone Literature in Second-Language Teacher Education: Curriculum Innovation through Intercultural Communication (Routledge, 2021)
Irish Poetry After Feminism (2008)
Lectures on American Literature, 3rd edition (2011)
Recent Reviews
Rev. of Spásas , by Marcus Mac Conghail, Poetry Ireland Review 137 (Fall 2022)
Rev. of Paul Muldoon in America: Transatlantic Formations, by Alex Alonso, American Literary History 35.1 (Spring 2023), 694-696.
Rev. of Jahan Ramazani, Poetry in a Global Age. Dublin Review of Books (May 2021)
Rev. of Derek Mahon, Washing Up. TLS (Feb. 12, 2021)
Rev. of Jacob Edmond, Make it the Same: Poetry in the Age of Global Media. In TLS Dec. 4, 2020.
Rev. of Benjamin Keatinge, ed., Making Integral: Critical essays on Richard Murphy. In Postcolonial Text 15.1 (2020)
Selected Recent and Forthcoming Articles
Stevens’ High Sentence for the End Time. Wallace Stevens Journal 46.1 (Spring 2022): 10-26 [on Stevens, hyperobjects, and transnationalism]
Zamiast konkluzji. Konteksty kultury 17.1 (2020): 129-132. [In Polish], trans. Marek Król. [essay on Cold War transnationalism and its implications for nationalist literary criticism]
Yeats, Pound and World English. The Oxford Handbook of W. B. Yeats, eds. Lauren Arrington and Matthew Campbell (2023)
Seamus Heaney’s Critical Audiences. In: Seamus Heaney in Context, ed. Geraldine Higgins (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Paul Muldoon a hyperobjekty. Trans. Martin Světlík. In: Věci v básních: od Achilleova štítu po hyperobjekty (Vydavatelství Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta, 2020), 385-405.
Irish as a Lingua Franca, Litteraria Pragensia 30.59 (July 2020): 108-120. (You can see the whole issue here.)
Yeats and the End of the World. International Yeats Studies 4.1 (2020). PDF available thru link.
Paul Muldoon and the Irish Language. Litteraria Pragensia 28.55 (Jul 2018): 30-42. (PDF) [For those interested in the whole issue about the global contexts of literature in Gaelic and Gallic, see this link.]
Eavan Boland. In: Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets, ed. Gerald Dawe. Cambridge UP, 2017.
Stevens and Landscape. In: Stevens in Context, ed. Glen MacLeod. Cambridge UP, 2017. 77-86.
“Out in the Open: The Pocket Book of Edward Thomas.” In: Dusk and Dawn: Literature Between Two Centuries, eds Šárka Grauová and Eva Voldřichová Beránková. Faculty of Arts Charles University Press, 2017.333-355. pdf
Regionalism, Globalism and Seamus Heaney`s Latin Lift-Off. Journal of European Studies 46.1 (2016): 1-14. Special Heaney Issue, eds Jacek Gutorow and David Kennedy.
Poetry Books
The Ooaa Bird (Carcanet, 1995)
Privacy (Carcanet, 1999)
Fuselage (Gallery, 2002)
Waves & Trees (Gallery, 2006)
Close Quarters (Gallery, 2011)
Early House (Gallery, 2015)
Shallow Seas (Gallery, 2020)
BA, MA, PhD: 20th-century Anglophone poetry; contemporary anglophone fiction from beyond Inner Circle countries; transnationalism; cosmopolitanism; translation; intercultural theory (in connection with applied linguistics)
Please submit essays in electronic format only via email. No essays will be marked between 1 July and 15 August. Also, during the summer, expect delays of 1-2 wks for answers to email.
Thesis writers at all levels should consult a style manual. I recommend either The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr and E. B. White, or The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the Twentieth-First Century, by Steven Pinker. While the first is sometimes too prescriptive and idiosyncratic, it is brief. The second is longer, but more thorough, more exact and more up-to-date.
If I am supervising your BA or MA Thesis and you wish to have it examined in autumn, you must submit the complete text to me no later than June 15. Also, you must submit a first chapter, with full scholarly apparatus, by 15 March, in order to ensure that formatting and style are correct. I expect that you will provide chapters individually from March to June. The timetable for defence of theses in the winter exam period should follow roughly the same schedule.
You can address me either as “Dr. Quinn” or “Justin,” whichever you are more comfortable with; if we are speaking Czech, we should use Vy, unless otherwise agreed. By default, I will address you by your first name, but if you are uncomfortable with this please let me know. Communication by email should be formal and professional, closer to a letter than social-media posting/messaging. My pronouns are: he/his/him.
Recently enjoyed…
John le Carré, A Legacy of Spies [fiction]
John le Carré, The Honorable Schoolboy [fiction]
Elena Lappin, What Language Do I Dream In [nonfiction]
Jon Michaud, Last Call at Coogan’s [nonfiction]
Estella Boersma, The Wave [music]
Brian K. Goodman, The Nonconformists: American and Czech Writers across the Iron Curtain [nonfiction]
Celine Song, Past Lives [movie]
Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre [fiction]
David S. Goyer & Josh Friedman, Foundation, Season 2 [TV]
Red Snapper, Our Aim is to Satisfy [music]
Beth Orton, Thinking about Tomorrow [music]
David Wheatley, Child Ballad [poetry]
Beth Orton, Weather Alive [music]
Jeff Parker, Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy Side B [music]
Lore Segal, Her First American [fiction]
Jitka Svobodová, Za hranou viděného [exhibition]
Giacinto Scelsi, Quatro Pezzi [music]
Janette Turner Hospital, Orpheus Lost [fiction]
Emma Cline, The Guest [fiction]
Paul Eng, Praying Mantis, Bong Po [nonfiction]
Nicole Flattery, Nothing Special [fiction]
Sho Dawgs, Down the Road [music]
Pulp, Common People [music]
The Necks, Hanging Gardens [music]
Graham Yost, Silo [TV]
Regulars
HIS voice
Deník N
Respekt
Guardian
New Yorker
Beo ar Éigean