Jo Burns was born in Northern Ireland and lives in Germany where she works as a freelance translator and English Lecturer. She is also a board member for a foundation supporting rural development projects in East Africa and India.
Publications and Achievements
Turas Press has published two of her collections:
- White Horses (2018), her first full collection
- Brink (2021)
A joint collection, The Conversation, with poet Emily Cooper, explores the world of Picasso’s women and was published by Doire Press in 2024.
Jo’s poems have been widely published in many prestigious journals including Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry News, Southword, The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Magma and elsewhere.
Jo has won and been shortlisted for many awards, including:
- McClure Poetry Prize 2017 at the Irish Writers Festival CA.
- Magma Poetry Competition 2018
- New Irish Writing in Germany Poetry Award 2018 for her poem Hard Borders
- 2020 Listowel Irish Writers Week Single Poem Prize
- Poetry Society Hamish Canham Prize.
In addition she was
• One of Eyewear Publishing’s Best British and Irish Poets 2017;
• Shortlisted for the Belfast Book Festival Mairtin Crawford Award 2017;
• Shortlisted for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year;
• A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee
In September 2019, her poem The Terminal 1 Smoking Lounge on the theme of “Truth” was named one of the winners in the Poetry Society Members’ Room Competition.
Her poem Christmas Shelter was broadcast on Radio Telefís Éireann The Poetry Programme on Christmas Day, 2018 The programme is an hour long. Christmas Shelter is at 0:32.28
As Brink, her second collection, was published during the Covid 19 pandemic, it was not possible to have an in-person launch. The online launch of Brink, features Jo in conversation with Ross Hattaway and Turas Press Director Liz McSkeane.
Brink was featured on the RTE Poetry Programme, where Jo discussed her work with Olivia O’Leary and read from the new collection.
Jo’s work is included in the UCD Irish Poetry Reading Archive for which she reads Phaethon from White Horses.
Reviews and Reception
Writing in the Bangor Literary Journal, February 2019, Moyra Donaldson refers to White Horses as
“an impressive début, intertwining the personal with the political and social.”
Jaki McCarrick reviews “Burns’ remarkable début” in Poetry Ireland Review 128, p 42
Dick Edelstein reviews Brink in the Dublin Review of Books
“In Brink, Jo Burns sketches a world where the line that separates our lives from chaos appears to be alarmingly thin.”
For links to more reviews of Jo’s work, head over to our Reviews page.
For more features and interviews exploring Jo’s work, check out our Articles and Interviews page.