Poetry Day Ireland Showcase Reading

Poetry NI and Poetry Ireland present a special showcase event for Poetry Day Ireland, with six of the best from within Northern Ireland.

OLIVE BRODERICK is originally from Youghal, Co. Cork, having travelled to Northern Ireland to undertake the Creative Writing MA at Queen’s University Belfast, and settling in Co. Down in 2003. In 2009, she was one of the Poetry Introduction series readers and won a Henessy X.O. Literary Award, Emerging Poetry Category for the same year. Her first publication - pamphlet ‘Darkhaired’ (Templar Poetry, 2010) - was shortlisted for a Michael Marks Award. 

TORY CAMPBELL lives in Belfast where she coordinates a training centre for adults with learning disability. Tory writes poems about relationships and has been published in a range of local anthologies, The Stinging Fly and The Irish Independent. She was shortlisted for the 2012 Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and was highly commended in the 2014 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award.

STEPHANIE CONN is a former teacher and graduate of the MA programme at the Seamus Heaney Centre, and recent winner of the Yeovil Poetry Prize, Funeral Service NI prize and the inaugural Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Career Enhancement Award. Her first collection, ‘The Woman on the Other Side’ is out now with Doire Press. She is currently working on her second collection.

RAY GIVANS was brought up in the village of Castlecaulfield, County Tyrone. His poetry has been published in four pamphlet length collections, including two from Lapwing Publications, Belfast. His first full poetry collection, "Tolstoy in Love" was published by Dedalus Press, Dublin. This collection was shortlisted for the Rupert and Eithne Strong award for best first collection, 2009, by an Irish poet. A second collection, "The Innermost Room”, will soon be submitted for publication consideration.

MATTHEW RICE was born in Belfast in 1980. He has published poems widely in reputable journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Echo Room, Iodine Poetry Journal, Número Cinq, FourXFour Poetry Journal and The Irish Literary Times, among various others. He was included in the CAP anthology, 'Connections' (2016), and was long-listed for The Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016. He is currently finalising his first collection of poems entitled 'Door Left Open'.

ROSS THOMPSON is a writer from Bangor, County Down. His work is informed by recurrent themes: family, the power of memory, the fragility of human life and broken relationships. He teaches English and reads regularly at literary events across Northern Ireland. Ross has been published in various anthologies and was the winner of the FSNI National Poetry Competition 2013 for his poem 'Icarus', and he now acts as a judge with this contest. His pamphlet, 'Slumberland', was published in 2014, and he is currently working on several further poetry projects.

This event is FREE (donations welcome on the night)

Poetry NI thanks the kind support of Poetry Ireland for this event.

[Please note that this event is in an upstairs venue, so unfortunately it has to be noted there is no disabled access available.]

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