Derek Coyle has published poems in Irish Pages, The Texas Literary Review, Cuadrivio, Wordlegs, The SHOp, Burning Bush 2, Glitterwolf, Skylight 47, Assaracus, Chelsea Station, RFD, and The Stony Thursday Book. He has been shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award (2010, 2014, 2015), the Bradshaw Prize (2011), and in 2012 he was a chosen poet for the Poetry Ireland ‘Introductions Series.’ In 2013 he was runner up in the Bradshaw Prize. He is a founding member of the Carlow Writers’ Co-Operative.The Carlow Writers’ Co-Operative is a group of local writers who meet fortnightly to support each other in the development of original creative writing from Carlow. The Co-Op has been in operation since 2009. Our primary aim is to see our members publish in literary journals and in book form, as well as faring well in national and international literary competition. We have succeeded in doing all of this. This year, one of our members, Simon Lewis published his first volume Jewtown (Galway: Doire Press, 2016) after having won the prestigious national Hennessey Award for New Irish Poetry, a prize currently associated with The Irish Times.
 
Alongside his literary pursuit Derek is a full-time lecturer in English Literature and Irish Studies at Carlow College. He has given research papers at the University of Oxford, the University of Innsbruck, and at the University of Louvain. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow, where he studied the poetry of Seamus Heaney and Paul Celan. He has published on the poetry of Derek Walcott, and is currently looking at place and the body in the poetry of Michael Longley and Andrew McMillan. In due course he hope to extend this out to include poets like Mark Doty and Thom Gunn.