John Montague

ABOUT JOHN MONTAGUE

American-born Irish modernist poet whose best-known works include A Slow Dance and The Dead Kingdom. Also a poetry professor, he taught at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Queen's University Belfast.

He spent his early childhood years in Brooklyn, New York, but moved to his family's native Ireland during The Great Depression era.

He was the first recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry honor (the Irish equivalent of the Poet Laureate title).

He was married twice -- to fellow Fulbright scholar Madeleine Montague, and to Evelyn Robson -- and also had a romantic relationship with writer Elizabeth Wassell.

While living in Paris in the early 1960s, he met and befriended playwright Samuel Beckett .