Born in Drogheda in 1966, he studied biology and chemistry and worked for periods as an industrial chemist, teacher and school principal. He was awarded an MA in poetry (
Lancaster University) under the direction of
James Simmons. He lived and worked in
Kyoto,
Japan in the early 1990s and travelled for long periods in Asia, in particular China and India and later in Latin America. He was a director of
Poetry Ireland, the national organisation for the support and promotion of poets and poetry from 2001 to 2013. Moving with his family to
Yangon,
Myanmar in the summer of 2013, they lived there until post-democratic elections at the end of 2015. In January 2016, his family moved to
Harare,
Zimbabwe. They continue to live in Zimbabwe. Woods has published four collections of poetry and for his first,
Sailing to Hokkaido (Worple Press, 2001) he won the
Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Dedalus Press reissued Woods's first two poetry collections in one volume entitled
Cargo (2010) and have published his work since. His third collection
Ocean Letters (2011) was translated into Hungarian by
Tomas Kabdebó and awarded the Irodalmi Jelen Prize in 2013. Based in part on his experiences of living in Burma, Dedalus Press published his work,
Monsoon Diary, in 2018. He has edited several poetry publications, he co-edited with Irene de Angelis
Our Shared Japan (Dedalus Press, 2007) an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry concerning Japan with an accompanying essay by
Seamus Heaney. With
Gerard Smyth he co-edited
The Poetry Project, a web anthology of visual artists and filmmakers interpreting selected poems. He is a consulting editor for the Irish poetry journal
Cyphers and has edited anthologies of contemporary Burmese and Zimbabwean poetry for the journal. In 2014 and in 2019, Woods was a recipient of the
Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship and in 2016 and 2020 Woods was awarded Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursaries towards the development of new work. In Zimbabwe, Woods edited and was a contributing writer for
The Mashonaland Irish Association, A Miscellany, 1891-2019; Weaver Press, Harare, 2019. The book traced through the oldest expatriate Irish organisation in Africa, a history of the Irish in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. Woods has read at a number of venues and festivals including the
Aldeburgh Poetry Festival,
Clifden Arts Week,
Dublin Writers' Festival,
Medellín International Poetry Festival,
Marché de la Poésie (Paris),
Irrawaddy Literary Festival (Mandalay),
Iowa Book Fair,
Ubud Writers & Readers Festival,
Irish Arts Centre (New York),
Marina Tsvetaeva House (Moscow),
Nabokov House, St. Petersburg Cúirt International Festival of Literature and
Franschhoek Literary Festival (South Africa). Woods is a contributor and reviewer to numerous newspapers and journals including
The Irish Times,
The Myanmar Times,
Dublin Review of Books,
The Mekong Review, and
Poetry Ireland Review. ==Poetry books==