About
Hosted by Paul Maddern
Two outstanding poets from a new generation of Irish writing come together for a special reading at Seamus Heaney HomePlace. Matthew Rice and Annemarie Ní Churreáin will share poems from their new and critically acclaimed collections, Plastic and Hymn to All the Restless Girls.
Matthew Rice's Plastic is set during a single twelve-hour night shift in a factory, plastic is a book-length poem exploring the life of the industrial worker turned poet. Bringing together memoir, ekphrasis and satire, plastic is based on Rice's experience working in a plastic moulding factory for ten years. Matthew's debut, The Last Weather Observer (Summer Palace Press) was an Arts Council of Northern Ireland top ten books of the year pick in 2021. He is the Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's.
Annemarie Ní Churreáin's Hymn to All the Restless Girls is a powerful and lyrical collection that celebrates the rebel spirit of the restless girl, sometimes known as a troublemaker but valued as a truth-teller, offering prayers of defiance, sacraments of identification, howls of protest and lyric flights. Annemarie's poetry has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (US) and for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Best Second Collection (UK). Her awards include the Irish Arts Council's Next Generation Artist Award, The Markievicz Award, The Kavanagh Fellowship and a Hawthornden Foundation Residency Award (NYC).
Together, their work reflects the vitality and range of emerging Irish poetry today.
