About us
The history of New Writers' Press is to be found at
sound eye. This particular site will be devoted to the work of translating poetry from Spanish into English. The project will be run by Michael Smith with the assistance of Luis Huerga. The purpose of the site is to provide a forum for Hispanists, poets and others who wish to contribute, in whatever way, to the appreciation and diffusion of poetry in the Spanish language by means of its translation into English.Project Director: Michael Smith
Michael Smith was born in Dublin in 1942.
Founder of New Writers' Press in 1967, he has been responsible for the publication of over fifty books and magazines. Through NWP he has been generally regarded as the editorial and critical mainstay of the modernist tradition in Irish poetry, publishing the poetry of Thomas MacGreevy, Denis Devlin, Brian Coffey, Niall Montgomery, Charles Donnelly as well as the work of a host of other younger poets. He was founder/editor of the prestigious and influential literary magazine The Lace Curtain. For 1984 to 1989 Michael Smith was a member of the Arts Council of Ireland. On the Council his special interests were Irish Literature and Community Arts. With Seán Ó Mordha he made a 30 minute programme for RTE on the life and poetry of Brian Coffey with whom he had a deep friendship for more than thirty years. He has lectured on Irish literature abroad, most notably in Spain on the works of Samuel Beckett.
From Dec. 1995 to April 1996, he was Writer in Residence in UCD and he was Honorary Senior Fellow in the Dept. of English in UCD for the year 1996-1997. He is a regular features writer and literary reviewer of poetry and Hispanic books for The Irish Times.
His poetry has appeared in many of the important anthologies of contemporary Irish poetry