O'Sullivan, Leanne 1983-

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O'Sullivan, Leanne 1983-

PERSONAL:

Born 1983, in Cork, Ireland. Education: University College Cork, B.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Cork, Ireland.

CAREER:

Poet.

AWARDS, HONORS:

First prize, Seacat Poetry competition; first prize, RTE Rattlebag Poetry Slam; first prize, Davoren Hanna Award for Young Emerging Irish Poet.

WRITINGS:

Waiting for My Clothes (poems), Bloodaxe Books (Tarset, Northumberland, England), 2004.

Poems have been published in magazines and newspapers, including the London Guardian.

SIDELIGHTS:

Leanne O'Sullivan is a poet whose first collection, Waiting for My Clothes, met with critical acclaim and established her as one of Ireland's most promising young poets. O'Sullivan's style and subject matter have been compared to that of Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, and Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnail; American poet laureate Billy Collins called her "a teenaged Virgil … [who] guides us down some of the more hellish corridors of adolescence with a voice that is strong and true," as quoted by Patrick Cotter on the Ireland—Poetry International Web site. Topics in the collection include her encounters with bulimia, depression, feminine ideals, talking on the telephone, and her relationships with her mother, brother, and grandmother, all written about "with such a sure handling that it creates a pleasing disjunction between the terrible subject matter being delivered and the self-assurance of the delivery itself," wrote Andrew Neilson in a review for the poetry journal Magma. Relying on metaphors, allusions to mythology, and frequently concerned with the mind/body dichotomy, O'Sullivan's poems "swing between the individual personality and a legendary past that engulfs the present moment," wrote Magdalena Kay in a review for World Literature Today.