Irish poet Jane Clarke is the author of two poetry collections and an illustrated poetry booklet. Her first and second collections were published by Bloodaxe Books, The River  in 2015 and When the Tree Falls in 2019. Jane's third collection, A Change in the Air, will be published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2023.

In 2016 The River was the first poetry collection ever shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Award, given for a distinguished work of fiction or non-fiction evoking the spirit of a place. When the Tree Falls was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize 2020, the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2020 and the Farmgate Café National Poetry Award 2020 as well as being longlisted for the Royal Society for Literature Ondaatje Award 2020. 'Copper Soles' from When the Tree Falls is one of the highly commended poems in the Forward Book of Poetry 2021.

All the Way Home, an illustrated sequence of poems in response to a family archive of First World War photographs and letters held in the Mary Evans Picture Library, London, was published by Smith|Doorstop in April 2019.

Jane received the Ireland Chair of Poetry Travel Award 2022. In 2016 she received the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry with three poems from The River. She also won the inaugural Listowel Writers' Week Poem of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2016. 

Originally from a farm in Roscommon, Jane now lives in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow. She gratefully acknowledges the Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary Award 2021, Covid-19 Response Award 2020 and Literature Bursary Award 2017 and also the Wicklow County Council Artist Support Award 2019 and Culture Ireland support for readings in the UK and US.

Clear, direct, lovely: Jane Clarke’s voice slips into the Irish tradition with such ease, it is as though she had always been at the heart of it.

– Anne Enright, Laureate for Irish Fiction.

Jane reads and talks about her poem ’Swim’ from When the Tree Falls, celebrating her friendship with fellow poet Shirley McClure, who died from cancer in 2016.