…this always startling reassurance: a path, a headland, a field, the unfathomable breadth of the sea
Colm is a poet and writer from Bray, Co. Wicklow.
In 2015 he was awarded the Thomas and Ellen O’Connor Scholarship to study for an MA in creative writing at the University of Limerick and graduated with distinction the following year. Since then, his work has been appearing in noted literary journals (a full list of which can be found below). In 2023, he placed runner up in the Irish Writer’s Centre Novel Fair and was highly commended in The Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry Competition. He has read at the Dublin Book Festival as part of Poetry Ireland Introductions and the Cork International Poetry Festival as part of The Munster Literature Centre’s Prebooked Poetry Introductions.
An important part of his practice is his work as a community poet. He has taught at Cabinteely Adult Education and has delivered a series of classes with Wicklow County Libraries. He was recently selected for the TAP+ (Teacher Artist Partnership) with Blackrock Education Centre during which which he undertook poetry residencies in primary schools in his locality. He is listed on the Blast register for Creativity & Arts in Education Residencies.
Colm is the recipient of both an Arts Council Agility Award and an Arts Council Literature Bursary. He is a professional member of the Irish Writers Centre.
Click on the following links for more information on upcoming workshops and his work with schools.
RECENTLY PUBLISHED WORK
Again the Swallow
will emerge from unblemished membrane.
The only signs of her winter are two droplets
loosened from trailing tail tips that fall
into curved crosshatch on the surface of her pool.
Then away to bring sun or sorrow on a whim
and rise unstalling, full-cheeked, to snatch joy
from the sky and plunge again thrilled,
trilling bluebells and buttercups in reckless flybys,
slaloming for no other reason than Why not?
Would she fly so high or fast, so low,
without an audience to delight? She builds
her coiled-clay nest, reinforced with dry grasses
by a bedroom window as if, like a Lost Boy,
she needed the comfort of overheard stories.
Her performance will run the summer long,
through dying days of August, an autumn
encore, the death-watch, the first sign
of the first frost, when, sleek as she emerged,
she’ll return, hardly disturbing the pond’s skin,
and revealed only by those trained to listen
for the hollow drop. The weave will distort
her metamorphosis and she will undress
from redundant feathers, open, at last, her gills
for her long winter. She’ll burrow to bury
her torpedo torso in warm silt and here remain
enwrapped beneath the bank or some rock,
overlooked by heron and pike alike until crocuses
sing and then, again, the swallow will swim.
First appeared in Swerve, Issue 5, December 2025, Poetry Editor Daniel Fraser
Superposition
The sun rose from a cloud,
the ground burst open
with colourful condolences
and coming around the shoulder
somehow he came to me,
as pleased with the shock
as I have been—all that water
unveiled by rock and in the moment
we faced endlessness together.
My first encounter with fatherhood,
aside from grief, was an impulse
to share this always startling reassurance:
a path, a headland, a field,
the unfathomable breadth of the sea.
First appeared in Swerve, Issue 5, December 2025, Poetry Editor Daniel Fraser
Murmurations
(from the window of the Wexford train)
She will curl away the daylong
on the tongue of a tired couch,
secretly savouring the sour smell
of slippers burrowing back under
an old fleece blanket-with-hood,
once skin-pink, now recently deceased
—embedded crust of curry sauce,
spaniel fur and wine like a wound
or a cruse that insists she will remember.
She vanishes and reappears a mirage
obscured by medicine boxes, rigid facecloths,
plastic bath-toys spattered with mildew,
floral glass installed decades ago,
before her time. And she was born here.
The house moves on its own.
One over is the same but different
people live inside. A couple, older
and a cat. Dark furniture carved
and crafted, collected over two lifetimes
not assembled from packages. Lace
anointing an armchair. Firm slippers.
But not a couple, there is only one
living here, a shadow lurking by the front
window, peering, prying, as black
and white movies play behind him,
snooker, soaps. An ornament never
to be removed in every window.
A polished dining table, unset.
‘What’s going on inside your head?’
Faster now and spitting rain. Turn
to still them long enough: A shed,
a collapsed roof, a garden office.
The wind tries on a pair of trousers.
Embattled and armed with a basket,
she grabs what she can. ‘It’s horrifying.
All of those people moving around.
At night going upstairs lying down,
entwined feet, dry skin, stale sheets.
How do they know to do that? Roll over
in each other’s warmth.’ ‘People in cars
on the motorway.’ ‘All going somewhere.’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
First appeared in Swerve, Issue 5, December 2025, Poetry Editor Daniel Fraser
To read more of Colm’s poetry click here.
PUBLICATIONS
POETRY
Again the Swallow, SWERVE (2025)
Superposition, SWERVE (2025)
Murmurations, SWERVE (2025)
This World Like a Knife, Banshee, (2025)
Mining, Taking Back The House: Poetry Ireland Introductions (2023)
Civilisations, Taking Back The House: Poetry Ireland Introductions (2023)
Portrait #3: Bec, The Waxed Lemon (2023)
Portrait #2: Oscar, Red Line Festival Poetry Competition (2022)
Shannon Fields, The Ogham Stone (2018)
Corner Boy’s Apprentice, The Cormorant Broadsheet, (2018), & The Cormorant (2021)
Mindfulness, Poetry Ireland Review & Poetry on the Dart, Poetry Day Ireland (2018)
PROSE
The Logic of Poetry, Taking Back The House: Poetry Ireland Intros (2023)
Blaze’s Blues, Profiles (2022)
Tir na Nóg, Bray Arts Journal (2015)
Ballroom, The South Circular (2012)
EDUCATION
THIRD LEVEL
Master of Arts in Creative Writing, University of Limerick (2016)
Bachelor of Design in Visual Communications, IADT (2008)
COURSES
TAP+ (Teacher Artist Partnership), Balckrock Education Centre, Creative Ireland (2025)
Arts & Culture, Bereavement & Grief, Irish Hospice Foundation (2025)
TEACHING
TAP+ (Teacher Artist Partnership) St. Patrick’s BNS, Hollypark (2025)
TAP+ (Teacher Artist Partnership) St Cronins National School, Bray (2025)
A Re-Introduction to Reading Poetry, Greystones Library (2024)
Introduction to Reading and Writing Poetry, Cabinteely Adult Education (2023–2024)
A Re-Introduction to Reading Poetry, Ballywaltrim Library (2023)
Beginners Poetry Writing, Ballywaltrim Library (2023)
Volunteer, Fighting Words (2022–2025)
AWARDS
Arts Council Literature Bursary (2024)
Munster Literature Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition (highly commended) (2024)
Poetry Ireland Introductions (2023)
Arts Council Agility Award (2023)
Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair (runner up) (2023)
The Red Line Festival Poetry Competition (highly commended) (2022)
Wicklow Arts Artist One-on-One-Coaching Sessions (2022)