Celebrating Ciaran Carson

Next week sees an international gathering at Queen’s University Belfast to honour and celebrate the work of the late Ciaran Carson. As befits such a multitalented man, there will be music and art as well as readings and discussion. And all events are free. I will be reading a few poems at 4pm on Wednesday13 September in the Canada Room, along with colleagues from the Writers’ Group that Ciaran led so successfully for over a decade. He was a man with a keen attention to every detail of language. And when editing a new piece, I still find myself thinking, what would Ciaran say about that?

I first met Ciaran about 15 years ago. I crept away from my day job at the University to attend the meetings of the Writers’ Group, which were held every Wednesday afternoon. I’d just begun to write poems that were stimulated by real-life stories. Ciaran was most encouraging. These weren’t ‘found poems’. The real-life story was the ground from which the poem emerged, a launch point. Ciaran christened them ‘discovered poems’ and told me I had ‘found my metier’.

My own small contribution to the commemoration is a new book of poems, ‘True’. It is dedicated to Ciaran and brings together the ‘discovered poems’ I wrote during his years of mentoring the Writers’ Group. The book will be published later this year by The Black Spring Press. You can read more about the book in the leaflet that the publisher has prepared (see below). I will be reading poems from ‘True’ on Wednesday 13 September. The event is hosted by Paul Maddern. I hope to see some of you there.