Sinead Morrissey was born in Portadown, and has lived in Belfast, New Zealand and Japan. She has published three collections of poems with Carcanet Press: There was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2002); and The State of the Prisons (2005), which was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She teaches creative writing at Queen’s University Belfast.

Polly Clark writes of The State of the Prisons: ‘Sinead Morrissey’s new collection is impressive in its range of poetic styles and forms: from an epic ballad, to a travelogue, to short and sharp pieces dealing with subjects such as forgiveness and the Troubles, this book shows the skills of an ambitious, curious writer, engaged with the world and with the confidence to try new ways of showing it to us.’