Two of the world’s leading poets, Ciaran Carson and Sinead Morrissey, are the next guest readers in the University of Maine at Farmington’s Visiting Writers Series. Carson and Morrissey, both Northern Irish poets, have been widely celebrated for their work and the impact it has made on the global literary stage. Sponsored by UMF’s singular Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, the event will feature the authors reading from their work at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, March 6, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a signing by the authors. A professor of English at Queen’s University in Belfast since 1998, Carson founded the prestigious Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in 2003. Named after the Nobel Prize winning poet widely recognized as one of the major poets of the twentieth century, the Centre is a focal point for creativity in Ireland and is recognized as an international hub of creative and research excellence in the field of literature. Carson has published many collections of poetry including “The Irish for No,” “Belfast Confetti,” “First Language,” “Opera Et Cetera,” “The Alexandrine Plan,” “The Twelfth of Never,” “Breaking News,” “The Midnight Court,” “For All We Know,” “On the Night Watch” and “Until Before After.” In addition, he has written books of prose including “Last Night’s Fun,” “The Star Factory,” “Fishing for Amber: A Long Story” and “Shamrock Tea.” Carson has received numerous awards including, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry, the Forward Poetry Prize and a Cholmondeley Award. Morrissey, whose work has been honored with many awards, has been writing poetry from a very early age. Her poetry collections include, “There was Fire in Vancouver,” “Between Here and There,” “The State of the Prisons” and “Through the Square Window.” Three of which were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poem “Through the Square Window” was awarded first prize in the U.K. National Poetry Competition. In addition, her awards include, The Patrick Kavanagh Award, the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award and the Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize. “Through the Square Window” was a Poetry Book Society Choice, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and won the Irish Times/Poetry Now Award in 2010. She is currently Reader in Creative Writing at Seamus Heaney Centre/School of English and directs the MA in Creative Writing and the BA Undergraduate Pathway in English with Creative Writing at Queens University.

More Information on the UMF Creative Writing Program

As the only Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program in the state of Maine and one of only three in all of New England, the UMF program invites students to work with faculty, who are practicing writers, in workshop-style classes to discover and develop their writing strengths in the genres of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Small classes, an emphasis on individual conferencing, and the development of a writing portfolio allow students to see themselves as artists and refine their writing under the guidance of accomplished and published faculty mentors. Students can pursue internships to gain real-world writing and publishing experience by working on campus with The Beloit Poetry Journal, a distinguished poetry publication since 1950; or Alice James Books, an award-winning poetry publishing house.