Ciaran Carson

Life
1948- [occas. Ciarán]; b. Belfast, son of a postman; first-language Irish speaker; ed. St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ School and Queen’s University, Belfast; worked in civil service; became teacher; played traditional Irish music at various venues; issued early poetry collections, The Insular Celts (1973); appt. Traditional Arts Officer, N.I. Arts Council, 1975-98; offered a stringent critique of Heaney’s ‘laureateship of violence’ in North (Honest Ulsterman, 1975); The New Estate (1976; enl. edn. 1988), winner of Eric Gregory Award for Poetry 1978, and The Lost Explorer (1978), a poetry pamphlet; issued a Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (1986), for Appletree Press; returned to poetry after intermission, issuing The Irish for No (1987), winner of the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, and Belfast Confetti (1989), both using adaptation of the long line of C. K. Williams and written in a pointedly anti-lyrical and linguistically experimental style; shortlisted for Whitbread Prize, 1989; winner of The Irish Times Literature Award for Poetry, 1990; issued First Language: Poems (1993), inaugural winner of T. S. Eliot Award that year; issued Letters from the Alphabet (1995) in a limited edition to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Gallery, and then included in Opera et Cetera (1996); issued The Star Factory (1997), an autobiography; issued The Alexandrine Plan (1998), a bilingual collection of thirty-four sonnets by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Mallarmé, with originals and translations printed recto and verso; issued The Twelfth of Never: Seventy-Seven Sonnets (1998), after Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Mallarmé; issued Shamrock Tea (2001), a novel based on Van Eyck’s Arnolfini wedding painting; trans. Canto XXXI of Dante’s Inferno among gathering of contemporary poets at South Bank, London, October 2000, afterwards publishing it in the Times Literary Supplement; proceeded to issue full version as Dante’s Inferno (2002); issued Breaking News (2003); appt. Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at the Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB), 2003. DIW DIL ORM HAM OCIL FDA

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Works
Poetry, The Insular Celts (Belfast: Ulsterman Publ. 1973); The New Estate (Belfast: Blackstaff; N. Carolina: Wake Forest UP 1976), and new enl. edn. as The New Estate and Other Poems (Dublin: Gallery 1988); The Lost Explorer (Belfast: Ulsterman Publ. 1978), poetry pamphlet incl. ‘Patchwork’; The Irish for No (Dublin: Gallery; NC: Wake Forest Up 1987; Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe 1988; rep. Gallery 1994), 61pp.; Belfast Confetti (Dublin: Gallery; Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe 1989); First Language: Poems (Dublin: Gallery 1993; Wake Forest UP 1994), 77pp. [inaugural winner of T. S. Eliot Award]; Letters from the Alphabet (Oldcastle, Meath: Gallery 1995) [ltd. edn. 500]; Opera et Cetera (Dublin: Gallery; Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe 1996) [incl. Letters from the Alphabet; ‘Opera’; ‘Et Cetera’; ‘Alibi’, versions from Romanian poet Stefan Augustin Doinas]; The Alexandrine Plan (Dublin: Gallery 1998), 85pp.; The Twelfth of Never: Seventy-Seven Sonnets (Dublin: Gallery 1998), 85pp. [ded. to Paul Muldoon]; The Ballad of HMS Belfast: A Compendium of Belfast Poems (London: Picador; Dublin: Gallery 1999), 117pp.; Breaking News (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 2003), 74pp. [ded. William Howard Russell]; The Inferno of Dante Alighieri: A New Translation (London: Granta 2002), 296pp. [Introduction, xi-xxi; see infra].

Prose, Shamrock Tea (London: Granta 2001), 308pp. [novel]; The Star Factory (London: Granta 1997), 295pp. [autobiography].

Miscellaneous, The Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music (Belfast: Appletree Press 1986); with John Kindness, Belfast Frescoes (Belfast: Crowquill 1995), 40pp., 20 col. pls. [essay by Carson]’ Last Night’s Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music (London: Jonathan Cape 1996), 208pp.

Articles (Selected), ‘Escaped from the Massacre’ [review of Seamus Heaney, North], in Honest Ulsterman, 50 (Winter 1975), pp.184-85[86], rev. as ‘Sweeney Astray: Escaping from Limbo’, in Tony Curtis, ed. and intro., The Art of Seamus Heaney [1982] (Mid Glamorgan, Brigend: Poetry Wales Press; Chester Springs: Dufour Edns. 1985), pp.139-48[141-48];review of Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray (1983), in The Honest Ulsterman, No. 76 (Autumn 1984), pp.73-79; review of Gerald Dawe and Michael Longley, eds., Across the Roaring Hill (1985), in Belfast Telegraph (20 Aug. 1985); ‘Hibernian Assumptions’, review of Thomas Kinsella, ed. The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (OUP n.d.) in Irish Review (1986), pp.99-102; ‘Escape from Oblivion’, in Irish Review, 6 (Spring 1989), pp.113-16.

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Criticism
Rand Brandes, ‘Ciaran Carson’ [interview], in Irish Review, No. 8 (Spring 1990), pp.77-90.

Frank Ormsby, ‘Interview with Ciaran Carson’, in Linen Hall Review, 8, 1 (April 1991), pp.5-8.

Neil Corcoran, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Ciaran Carson’s The Irish for No’, in Neil Corcoran, ed., The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (Brigend, Mid Glamorgan: Seren Books; Dufour 1992), pp.213].

Niall McGrath, interview with Ciaran Carson, in Edinbrugh Review, Vol. 92 1995), cp.64.

[Peter Sirr,] interview with Ciaran Carson, Graph, 2 (March 1996); Rita Kelly, ‘A Sinew of Memory’, review of The Ballad of HMS Belfast: A Compendium of Belfast Poems, in Books Ireland (March 2000), pp.64-65 [infra].

Mitsuko Ohno, �Hokusai, Basho, Zen and More: Japanese Influences on Irish Poets�, in Journal of Irish Studies (IASIL-Japan), XVII (2002), pp.15-31; pp.19-20 [questionnaire-response].

Alan Gillis, ‘Ciaran Carson and History’, in Nicholas Allen & Aaron Kelly, ed. The Cities of Belfast (Four Courts Press 2003) [q.pp.].

Shane Murphy, ‘Sonnets, Centos and Long Lines: Muldoon, Paulin, McGuckian and Carson’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.189-208.

Jonathan Highfield, ‘Archaeology of Reconciliation: Ciaran Carson’s Belfast Confetti and John Kindness’ Belfast Frescoes’, in Canadian Journal of Irish Studies(Fall 2002/Spring 2003), pp.168-87.

John Knowles, ‘Unexpected Carson’, review of Breaking News, in Fortnight (July/Aug. 2003), p.29 [infra].

David Butler, ‘“Slightly Out of Synch”: Joycean Strategies in Ciaran Carson’s The Twelfth of Never’, in Irish University Review, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2003), pp.337-55.

Colin Meir, ‘Ciaran Carson: Belfast Confetti’, in Linen Hall Review, 8, 1 (1991), cp.8. See also Peter MacDonald, Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland (Clarendon Press 1997), cp.62; C. L. Dallat, review of Breaking News [with Lake Geneva by Gerald Dawe], in The Guardian (Sat. 18 Oct. 2003) [infra].

Clair Wills, review of First Language (Oldcastle: Gallery 1994), 77pp, in Times Literary Supplement, March 1994.

Patricia Craig, ‘A recorded delivery: Poets, singer, flautist [sic], arts manager, and magical prose stylist ...’, review of The Star Factory, in Independent [UK] (22 Nov. 1997).

Tom Adair, ‘Angels Voices under Black Mountain’, review of The Star Factory, in The Irish Times, (?29 Nov. 1997).

Henry Hitchings, ‘Serendiptious city’, review of The Star Factory, Times Literary Supplement, (12 Dec. 1997).

William A Wilson, review of First Language (Irish Literary Supplement, Fall 1994).

Neil Corcoran, ed., The Chosen Ground, Bridgend: Seren Books 1992.

Daniel McAllister, ‘Subversion in the Poetry of Ciaran Carson’, UG Diss., UUC 2002.)

David Wheatley, review of The Alexandrine Plan, in “Poetry Now” column of The Irish Times (12 Sept. 1998)’.

Brian Lynch, review of The Twelfth of Never (Gallery 1998), in Irish Times ( 27 March 1999).

Rita Kelly, ‘A Sinew of Memory’, review of The Ballad of HMS Belfast: A Compendium of Belfast Poems, in Books Ireland (March 2000).

John Kenny, reviewing Shamrock Tea (London: Granta), 308pp., in The Irish Times, 17 March [2001].

Gregory Dart, review of Shamock Tea (Granta), in Times Literary Supplement, 20 April 2001, p.29.

Barra � S�aghdha, reviewing Jonn Brown, ed., In the Chair: Interviews with Poets from the North of Ireland (Salmon 2002), in Magill, July 2002, p.20.

Kevin Kiely, review of Ciaran Carson, The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (Granta), in Books Ireland (March 2003).

John Knowles, ‘Unexpected Carson’, review of Breaking News, in Fortnight (July/Aug. 2003), p.29.

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Notes

John Montague, ed., Faber Book of Irish Verse (London: Faber & Faber 1974), selects ‘The Insular Celts’ [infra]

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, selects from The Irish For No, ‘The Irish For No’ [1405]; also ‘Belfast Confetti’, ‘Clearance’, [1406]; BIOG, 1435.

Peter Fallon & Seán Golden, Soft Day, a miscellany of contemporary Irish writing (Dublin: Wolfhound Press; Indiana: Notre Dame UP 1980), incls. ‘The Insular Celts’; ‘The Half-Moon Lake’; ‘Soot’.

Books in Print (1994): The Insular Celts (Belf, Ulsterman Publ. 1973); The New Estate (Belfast: Blackstaff; N. Carolina: Wake Forest UP 1976) 085640 081 5]; enl. ed. (Blackstaff 1988) [1 85235 032 6]; The Irish for No (Dublin: Gallery; N. Carolina: Wake Forest UP 1987) [1 85235 017 2]; Belfast Confetti (Belfast: Blackstaff 1989, 1991) [1 85235 042 3 pb]; First Language (Dublin: Gallery 1993) [1 85235 128 4 pb]; also The Lost Explorer (Belfast: Ulsterman Publ. 1978) [NO ISBN].

An honest Ulsterman: Ciaran Carson has published extensively in The Honest Ulsterman, espec. issues 24-85, and again in 95 (see Tom Clyde, ed., Honest Ulsterman, Author Index, 1995).

Plaudit: Carson’s poem “Hamlet” was applauded by Kevin Myers in “An Irishman’s Diary” (Irish Times, 20 May 1998) as the best poem about Belfast and the Troubles.

University of Ulster (Central Library, Coleraine) gives variant date of birth is given as 1944 in catalogue.

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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)