“Kevin was a poet who had read enormously widely of the work of poets writing in English, Irish and from different countries... Indeed, I cannot think of anyone who did more to bring the public to appreciation and joy of poetry, to make the case for performed poetry, and who encouraged others to read broadly and, most of all, to make poems and find their meaning in their lives. His final pieces from hospital show a person of the deepest humanity, gifted with words and full of courage that he would wish for all to have for themselves.”
Michael D. Higgins
“I would say of Kevin’s poetry that he was like a breath of fresh air in a fog of farts.”
Alan O’Brien
Kevin Higgins is the author of six poetry collections previously published by Salmon Poetry, as well as numerous chapbooks and pamphlets. He taught creative writing and organised readings for twenty years under the Over the Edge banner, in Galway. In this posthumous collection, the poems Kevin wrote near the end of his life are arranged in three sections. In Section One, ‘I Always Thought I’d Live’, he considers illness, convalescence and mortality. In the second section, ‘Waiting for World Peace’, he turns his gaze outward, expertly satirising events on the world stage. In Section Three, ‘Things You Should Know About Higgins’, Kevin writes movingly about the people and events that made him who he was. Life Itself is a tour de force by a writer at the peak of his talent, and a lasting reminder of a sharp, witty and warm poetic voice that has been silenced too soon.
Kevin Higgins was co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway for twenty years, from 2003 until his death in 2023. He published six previous full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019), and Ecstatic (2022), all with Salmon Poetry. His poems also featured in Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon from 2015 to 2016. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0: New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin was a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for fifteen years. Kevin was the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also taught on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. He was a regular contributor to the podcast Not the Andrew Marr Show, hosted by Crispin Flintoff; its audience posthumously voted Kevin a Labour Hero of 2023. Mentioning the War, a collection of his reviews and essays, was published by Salmon in 2012. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published in late 2020 by Nuascealta. His extended essay ‘Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21st Century Ireland’ was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press in 2021. Life Itself is published posthumously.
