Derek Mahon

Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 
In 1968, while spending a year teaching English at Belfast High School, he published his first collection of poems "Night Crossing". He later taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a freelance journalist.
In 2007 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He won the Poetry Now Award in 2006 for his collection, "Harbour Lights", and again in 2009 for his "Life on Earth" collection.
On 1 October 2020, Mahon died after a short illness in Cork, Ireland, aged 78.