Maurice Riordan was born in 1953 in Lisgoold, Co. Cork, Ireland. His poetry collections include A Word from the Loki (Faber, 1995), nominated for the T. S. Eliot Prize, and Floods (Faber, 2000), a Book of the Year in both the Sunday Times and the Irish Times. He teaches at University of London’s Imperial College and Goldsmiths College, and is the poetry editor of Poetry London. A new collection, The Holy Land, will be published by Faber in February. (updated 2006)