Half-Day Warriors is the second collection from Listowel Writers' Week prizewinner, John Kavanagh.

Fintan O'Toole described Kavanagh's first collection, Etchings (Salmon, 1991), as "a graceful entrance... a pen that seems to seek the escape of romanticism only to be denied it by a knowledge of the way of the world which will not allow for false escape routes. The tension between that desire and that knowledge gives these poems a drama all of their own".

With Half-Day Warriors John Kavanagh brings to his readers a maturing and developing talent, with which he continues to explore his favourite themes: the energies and impulses, the gains and losses of love; a highly developed awareness of a sense of place in the post-modern world; and, a growing awareness of the tension between inner and outer, private and public worlds.

John Kavanagh was born in Sligo in 1960. He works as a Laboratory Technician at the Sligo Institute of Technology. He is a winner of the Poetry Prize at Listowel Writers' Week, 1988. Half-Day Warriors is his second collection, his first Etchings, also published by Salmon, appeared in 1991. He is also a playwright and author of No Comet Seen among other works for the stage. Presently he is at work on a third collection, a book length meditation on the character, themes and incidents of the Táin.