Oisín Breen is an acclaimed contemporary Dublin-born, Irish avant-garde poet, and financial journalist. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, Breen’s work is characterized through both his powerful long-form experimental epics, and his passionate maximalist verse, which explicitly rejects contemporary mainstream lyric orthodoxy in favour of a visceral maximalism.
He is the author of Flowers, All Sorts in Blossom, Figs, Berries, and Fruits Forgotten (Dreich|Hybrid, 2020) and Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín and Other Poems (Downingfield Press, 2023), which was named a Scotsman Poetry Book of the Year. His upcoming publications include the 60,000-word epic, The Kerygma (Salmon Poetry, 2027), and the collection of shorter form pieces, Sord (Broken Sleep, 2028). He has two major works in progress, Anam|Nesis (expected 2029), a second collection of shorter works, and a fresh epic, Ontogeny: Níl ár Gcroíthe Linne Góchumtha (expected 2030), both of which are available to interested publishers or agents to discuss. Widely published globally, his poetry has featured in 142 prestigious international journals across 24 countries. He maintains an active professional work presence across Scotland, Dublin, Europe, and the United States.
Multiply award-nominated (Best of the Net x4, Erbacce x2, Pushcart x1), and award-winning (a Scotsman Book of the Year (2023), and Erbacce Commended), his publication record includes Agenda, Acumen, the Irish Times, Books Ireland, Quadrant, Southword, North Dakota Quarterly and The Tahoma Literary Review.
Overall, he has 280 poems, a small number of short stories, and at least 750 articles and essays to his name.
Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín & Other Poems, a Scotsman newspaper book of the year for 2023 is available through Downingfield Press, here: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/produc...
And here (as well as through most good bookshops): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0645231819
His critically aclaimed debut collection, Flowers, all sorts in blossom, figs, berries, and fruits, forgotten was released Mar. 2020 by Edinburgh’s Hybrid/Dreich Press. It is now fully sold out of its print run. If you are interested in reissuing the work, please get in touch.
Advance praise of his forthcoming epic the Kerygma:
Amit Chaudhuri: "An extraordinary work, whose every line is an epic of creation."
John Sexton: “Oisín Breen has made a golden instrument that may very well stir the turgid porridge of contemporary verse into a new ambrosia."
Primarily a proponent of long-form style-orientated poetry, but always with a view to the real and the earthy, rather than the purely rarefied work of L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poets, Breen's work is also infused with both the philosophical, and the wildness of the epic tradition in its grand bardic iterations.
Breen has been published (as a poet) in Quadrant, A New Ulster, About Place, Acumen, the Irish Times, La Piccioletta Barca, Books Ireland, North Dakota Quarterly, Northern Gravy, the Seattle Star, Modern Literature, Fahmidan, Drunk Monkeys, Dreich, New English Review, Metaworker, Mono, Crow of Minerva, the Madrigal, Black Poppy, Permeable Barrier, Visual Verse, Meniscus Australia, In Parentheses, Kairos, Discretionary Love, Loch Raven Review, The Gyroscope Review, The Saltbush Review, the Banyon Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Griffel, Door is a Jar, The Ogham Stone, Gaia Literary Review, New Note, Cathexis, Wingless Dreamer, Yellerzine, ShabdAaweg, Stepaway, Roadrunner Review, Nevermore, The Belfast Review, Free State Review, Ground Up, Inklette, Euphony, Interim, Roi Fainéant, Thieving Magpie, MIROnline, Sibyl, New Critique, Reservoir Road, Decomp, Grub Street, WRFL, New Feathers Anthology, Oxford Middle East Review, Lucent Dreaming, Heartwood, Universe, Fiery Scribe, Zvona i Nari, October Hill, Red Ogre, Poetica, Drawn to the Light, AvantAppalachia, Stratford Quarterly, the Blue Nib, Kamena, Amphora Magazine, the Kleksograph, Riverbed Review, the Unbound Brooklyn Journal, Mortal Mag, Genuine Gold, Postscript, the Ocotillo Review, the Bosphorus Review, Book of Matches, Blue Lake Review, Wise Owl, The Tahoma Literary Review, NōD, Crowvus, Expanded Field, Revolute, Aji, Griffel, Seventh Quarry, Camas, the Martello, Inverted Syntax, Active Muse, Sunday Mornings at the River, Soundings East, Abstract, Fresh Words, Carmina, Big Windows Review, the Candyman’s Trumpet, Aphor, the Literary Hatchet, the White Wall Review, Consilience, New Plains Review, the Elevation Review, Milk House, Pangyrus, Spectra, Rock & Sling, Die Leere Mitte, Southword, Delta Poetry Review, Pinhole Poetry, Thimble, the Exacting Clam, Nether, Lotus Eater, Agenda, Crest, Coffin Bell, Punt Volat, Amphibian, Twenty-Two-Twenty-Eight, Across the Margins, Crowstep, The Black Earth Institute, Poetry Wales, Coalition for Digital Narratives, the Mantelpiece, and the anthologies An Áitiúil, Autumn Noir, Erbacce Press, Penned Poetry for Parkinson's Research, and Spirit of Fire and Dust, and Apothecary for the Future by Flooded Pine Press.
He also has work forthcoming in Quadrant, Fahmidan, Erbacce, and the Candyman's Trumpet.
Twitter: @Breen
Bluesky: @oisinbreen.bsky.social
Mastodon: @[email protected]
In non-fiction, Breen is published in the Blue Mountain Review, as a social journalist, RIABiz.com as a financial journalist, FXStreet, as a foreign exchange trade reporter, where he was nominated as writer of the year, and SeekingAlpha as a stock analyst.
Sample performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUd5tGoRF5c
Selected podcasts include:
An analysis with a light-heart of Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/...
Discussion on writing, and including a performance of 'The Lapwing', here: https://northerngravy.com/podcast-3/
Discussion on writing, philosophy, and a performance of 'The Borderland Furies', here: https://themetaworker.com/2023/03/13/pod...
Poems available to read online include:
Six Months Bought with Dirt: https://www.themadrigalpress.com/six-mon...
A Tweed Spinner Watches the Water Churn: https://www.themadrigalpress.com/a-tweed...
Tender Ministry: https://whitewallreview.com/a-tender-min...
Even Small Birds can Render Planets into Ash: https://poetrywales.co.uk/oisin-breen-ho...
October (the Seattle Star):
https://www.seattlestar.net/2021/06/octo...
Thirst and Vigil (La Piccioletta Barca):
https://www.picciolettabarca.com/posts/t...
Fatherhood and Sunday Afternoon (In Parentheses):
https://inparentheses.art/2021/08/20/fat...
Reviews include:
Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín:
The Scotsman: https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cultur...
World Literature Today: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/202...
The Washington Independent Review of Books: https://www.washingtonindependentreviewo...
Flowers, All Sorts in Blossom, Figs, Berries and Fruits Forgotten:
The Seattle Star: https://www.seattlestar.net/2021/03/befo...
World Literature Today: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/202...
The Mechanics Institute Review: http://mironline.org/reviewoisinbreen/
Interviews include:
Asymptote: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/20...
BOMB Magazine: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2024/0...ín-breen-by-thomas-beeson/
Sybil: https://www.sybiljournal.com/news/2024/2...
The Milk House: https://www.themilkhouse.org/interview-o...
