Adam Wyeth lives in Dublin and is an award-winning poet, playwright and essayist with five books published.
Wyeth's poetry has won and been commneded in many international competitions, including The Bridport Poetry Prize, The Arvon Poetry Prize and The Ballymaloe Poetry Prize. His work appears in several anthologies including The Forward Prize Anthology (2012 Faber), The Best of Irish Poetry (Southword 2010) and The Arvon 25th Anniversary Anthology. In 2016, Wyeth was selected for the Poetry Ireland Review's Rising Generation of Irish Poets. Composer Michael Doherty (BBC, Channel 4) adapted three of Wyeth's poems for a choral piece, called The Art of Dying, which got 2nd prize in the West Cork Chamber Festival 2017.
Wyeth's critically acclaimed debut collection, Silent Music (2011) was Highly Commended by the Forward Poetry Prize. Reviewing his collection for The Stinging Fly, Ailbhe Darcy wrote: 'Adam Wyeth is a poet of ideas exquisitely wrought and swarming, demanding a reader awake to complexity on a subtle scale. Silent Music is a debut of astonishing assurance'.
Since the publication of his second book, The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic Mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry (2013), which contains poems from Ireland's leading poets followed by sharp essays that unpack each poem and explore its Celtic mythological references, much of Adam's work has been concerned with Celtic mythology and Jungian psychology. He has held various accessible talks and papers around this interest, his most recent Depth Literature: Irish Myth and Modernism was published in 2021.
His third book and second poetry collection The Art of Dying was published with Salmon in November 2016 and was named as an Irish Times Book of the Year.
Wyeth's playwriting has seen him move to an increasingly more modernist and experimental approach. His plays have had several professional productions in Ireland, Berlin and New York. In 2014 he adapted his debut play Hang Up directed by Gavin McEntree for screen, which premiered at Cork International Film Festival. A major Broadway production of his play Apartment Block is currently underway, directed by Tony Award Winner Connor Bagley and Heather Arnson.
In 2019 Salmon Drama published his play 'This Is What Happened' which is prefaced with an essay called The Sacred Well about Wyeth's writing process. In the essay Wyeth equates his writing process to 'throwing toys out of the cot and then trying to assemble them into some semblance of order.' He continues, 'I very seldom plan anything I write; on the occasions when I have, the writing tends to flag, lacking substance and vigour, and my interest soon wanes. For me writing is all about finding a flow. there is a movement and excitement to the language, which drives me on.' Wyeth is an Associate Artist of the Civic theatre, Dublin, and in 2019 he became a member of Modernist Studies Ireland. He teaches Creative Writing online.
His fifth collection, about:blank, was recently published with Salmon Poetry. The work was adapted into an audio-immersive piece directed by Eoghan Carrick and performed by Olwen Fouere, Owen Roe and Paula McGlinchey. It premiered at Dublin Theatre Festival 2021.
He is co-founder with McGlinchey of Why on Earth Productions, which had its first production of solo-play Yoga For Beginners as part of the Scene & Heard work in development Festival at Smock Alley, 2016. He has also developed an accessible series of talk and creative writing workshops called The Mythic Imagination for participants of all writing levels.
Photo credit: Ste Murray