Maurice Riordan (born 1953) is an Irish poet, translator, and editor.

Born in Lisgoold, County Cork, his poetry collections include: A Word from the Loki (1995), a largely London-based collection which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize; Floods (2000) which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award;^[1] The Holy Land (2007) which contains a sequence of Idylls or prose poems. It received the Michael Hartnett Award.^[2]

Riordan was educated in St. Colman's College, Fermoy, University College Cork and McMaster University, Ontario, Canada.^{[citation needed]} In 2004 he was selected as one of the Poetry Society's 'Next Generation' poets.^[3] He was Poetry Editor of Poetry London from 2005 to 2009 ^[4] and Editor of The Poetry Review from 2013 to 2017.^[5]

Riordan has worked as an anthology editor and literary translator in addition to writing. His collection for children The Moon Has Written You a Poem is adapted from the Portuguese of José Jorge Letria.^[6] He has taught at Goldsmiths College and at Imperial College and is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University. He lives in London.^{[citation needed]}

Publications

Poetry collections

• A Word from the Loki, Faber 1995
• Floods, Faber 2000
• The Holy Land, Faber 2007
• The Water Stealer, Faber 2013
• Shoulder Tap, Faber 2021

For children

• The Moon Has Written You a Poem, Winged Chariot 2005

As editor

• A Quark for Mister Mark (with Jon Turney), Faber 2000
• Wild Reckoning (with John Burnside), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 2004
• The Best of Irish Poetry (with Colm Breathnach), Southword 2006
• Dark Matter: Poems of Space (with Jocelyn Bell Burnell), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 2008
• Hart Crane: Selected Poems, Faber 'Poet to Poet' 2008
• The Finest Music: Early Irish Lyrics in Translation, Faber 2014

Translations

• Confidential Reports (Immanuel Mifsud), Southword 2005
• The Play of Waves (Immanuel Mifsud), Arc 2017