John Ennis was born in County Westmeath in 1944. He is a graduate of University College, Cork and Dublin.

The Gallery Press published his early collections: Night on Hibernia (1976), Dolmen Hill (1977), A Drink of Spring (1979) and The Burren Days (1985). He won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 1975 and in 1996 the Irish American Cultural Institute Award.

John Ennis lives in Waterford where he is head of the School of Humanities at Waterford Institute of Technology.