• Heritage of Secrets - Aoife Mannix

    Heritage of Secrets ’20th Anniversary Edition’

    “Heritage of Secrets” has echoes of Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd” in more than just the name of the American sailor, Troy. With a keen eye for drama, Aoife Mannix navigates the peaks and troughs of intertwining lives in this exploration of a society in flux.

    Available now here at flippedeye and here at Easons.

  • Reconstruction - Aoife Mannix

    Reconstruction

    Aoife Mannix’s latest full collection begins with a series of poems that chronicle her recovery from cancer and surgery. In the wake of physical and personal transformation, the seemingly reliable constant of the outside world is in turn transformed by the global pandemic.

    Available here at flippedeye.

Poetry

I was commissioned to write and record a poem for National Poetry Day by the Forward Trust and Apples and Snakes in partnership with the BBC’s The Space. https://soundcloud.com/national-poetry-day/aoife-mannix-reads-coming-back

I have been commissioned by the National Archives to write about the South Asian experience of World War 1 as part of their Care and Comfort project working with visual artists Viv Philpot and Dorothy Tucker as well as groups of older people. This will culminate in an exhibition at the National Archives as well as a film about the project.

I was commissioned by the National Gallery of Ireland to write a poem for their 150th anniversary anthology ‘Lines of Vision: Irish Writers on Art.’

I have been Writer in Residence for Portsmouth Museum working with their A Hard Choice exhibition. This included a commission to write poems inspired by the exhibition and the art of being a curator.
aoifemannixportsmouthmuseum.wordpress.com

I was writer in residence for the Gosport Gallery’s Artists Rifles Exhibition. This included a commission to write poems inspired by the exhibition and World War One. https://writerinresidenceaoifemannix.wordpress.com/

I was commissioned by the BBC World Service’s World Today programme to write and read poems on air.

I was commissioned by Sutton Council and Spread The Word to write for their Conference of the Birds using my oral history workshops with older people as inspiration.

I worked with groups of young women living on council estates and two visual artists on a spoken word installation for the Foundling Museum.

The Wellcome Collection asked me to produce a soundscape and write poems in response to their Skeletons: London Buried Bones exhibition as well as to produce a textual sculpture for their Skin exhibition.

I was commissioned by Poet in the City and Lloyds to write a series of poems on the theme of youth violence for their Conflict and Instability Anthology.

I was commissioned to write for a project with Oily Cart, Apples & Snakes and Theatre Is…

I was commissioned to write a poem for the National Year of Reading for their conference on literacy.

I was commissioned by Writers’ Centre Norwich to write an article on poetry in education and run seminars for teachers as part of Well Versed.

Aoife Mannix

About

AOIFE MANNIX is an award-winning Irish poet and writer, the author of a novel, five collections of poetry, two pamphlets, and seven libretti. She has been poet-in-residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company and BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live.  She has written articles for the Irish Independent and the Gloss (the lifestyle magazine of the Irish Times) among others. She has toured internationally with the British Council as well as throughout the UK and Ireland including the Southbank Centre, Latitude and the Big Chill.  She has previously worked as a librettist with composer Stephen McNeff on ‘A Star Next to the Moon’ (opera which premiered at the Barbican in 2024), ‘The Horizons of Doubt’ (recorded by the BBC Singers as part of BBC Radio 3’s Afternoon concert) ‘Beyond the Garden’ (a one act opera with mezzo-soprano Susan Bickley), ‘The Walking Shadows’ (a choral work about the First World War which premiered at St-Martin-in-the-Fields) and ‘A Half Darkness’ (commissioned by Chamber Choir Ireland as part of the 1916 centenary.)  

She has been commissioned by the BBC, the National Archives, the Portsmouth Museum, Youth Music Theatre UK, Apples and Snakes, the National Gallery of Ireland, the O’Brien Collection, the Bronte Parsonage, and Cherwell Theatre Company. She has taught creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, the University of Westminster, Anglia Ruskin University, and Bucks New University. She has previously worked as a script editor for the BBC as well as for Channel 4 and the Royal Court Theatre. She has a PhD in creative writing from Goldsmiths, University of London. She lives in Oxfordshire.