Curtis was born in
Dublin, and educated at the
University of Essex and at
Trinity College, Dublin. In 1993 he won the Poetry Ireland/Friends Provident National Poetry Competition.[2] In 2018 he won the 2018 O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award presented by the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.[3] He also works in education under the Skagit River Poetry Project schools programme.[4]