Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and has long since lived in Dublin, where he has worked as a writer-in-residence, festival organiser, and, more recently, broadcaster and editor. The recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 1989, he is the author of five collections of poems, as well as New and Selected Poems (2005). His prose memoir, The Invisible Prison, was published in 2009, and his many other publications include The Portable Creative Writing Workshop. He is a member of Aosdana and the 2008 recipient of the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry.

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Following his acclaimed memoir The Invisible Prison, Pat Boran's first full-length collection of poems in over a decade sees him explore questions of love, belonging and connection, recognising that small and great challenges alike may be entry points to new beginnings, and that the instinct to sing and praise has never been more relevant or crucial. Despite echoing the promise of religious belief, The Next Life of the title is entirely to be found in the here-and-now and the near-to-hand, in the play of sparrows on a lawn, the death-exploring game of his two small children ('Let’s Die'), and in the trust and faith of lovers whispering together “words never uttered before”.