Peter van de Kamp was born in The Hague, The Netherlands in 1956. He taught English and Anglo-Irish Literature, Rhetoric and Stylistics at the University of Leiden and University College, Dublin, where he was a Newman Scholar. He now teaches at the Institute of Technology, Tralee. A poet, translator, critic, anthologist and scholar, he has published extensively in Ireland, England, Europe and the States. He co-authored a biography of Flann O'Brien with Peter Costello, edited, with Jacques Chuto et al., The Collected Works of James Clarence Mangan, with Frank van Meurs the most comprehensive bilingual anthology of Dutch poetry in English (Turning Tides), and with A. Norman Jeffares the recent series of anthologies, Irish Literature: The Eighteenth Century and Irish Literature: The Nineteenth Century. In all, he has published 17 books. His first collection of poetry, Notes, was published by Salmon in 1999. He was the founder of K.I.S.S., the Kerry International Summer School of Living Irish Authors. Peter lives in Tralee, with his wife Caroline and his dog Mickey, who both feature in this collection.

Many conversations are happening in these poems, wistful conversations which the poet is having with the reader and witty, engaging conversations with himself or with nobody in particular.
Arresting, full of rhythm and gentle flow -- never a dull moment. Oh, and he knows how to rhyme as well!
Gabriel Rosenstock

... these poems are both personal and impersonal. They write with brutal candour about the heart of human fragility.... Poems like this are in communion with their own making, their own song and this more than any other quality, marks van de Kamp's extraordinary achievement.
Irish Literary Supplement