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Ciaran Carson

キーラン・カーソン

Kīran Kāson

Aliases: Ciaran Gerard Carson / Ciarán Gearóid Mac Carráin

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1948-10-09 （Belfast, Northern Ireland）
Died
2019-10-06 （Belfast, Northern Ireland） age 70
Nationality
Northern Irish, Irish
Languages
English, Irish
Religion
Catholic
Residence History
Belfast, lower Falls Road

Career

Occupations
poet, novelist, Traditional Arts Officer, Professor of English, musician
Active Years
1976-2019
Affiliations
Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Queen's University, Belfast, Seamus Heaney Centre
Influenced By
Louis MacNeice, C. K. Williams, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon
Influenced
Paul Muldoon

Education

St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast
Grammar School
Country: United Kingdom
Secondary school
Queen's University, Belfast
English
Degree: BA
Country: United Kingdom
Degree in English

Awards

Eric Gregory Award
1978
Result: 受賞
Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize
1987
Work: The Irish for No
Result: 受賞
T. S. Eliot Prize
1993
Work: First Language: Poems
Result: 受賞
Cholmondeley Award
2003
Work: Breaking News
Result: 受賞
Forward Poetry Prize
2003
Work: Breaking News
Category: Best Poetry Collection of the Year
Result: 受賞
Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry
1990
Work: Belfast Confetti
Organization: Irish Times
Result: 受賞
Yorkshire Post Book Award
1997
Work: The Star Factory
Category: Book of the Year
Organization: Yorkshire Post
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Irish for No

1987 Poetry

Poetry collection winner of Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize. Fusion of long lines and traditional storytelling.

BelfastLanguageIrish culture

Belfast Confetti

1989 Poetry

Poetry collection mapping Troubles-era Belfast, winner of Irish Times Prize.

The TroublesBelfastConfusion

First Language: Poems

1993 Poetry

T. S. Eliot Prize winner focusing on language, with translations from Ovid, Rimbaud, Baudelaire.

LanguageTranslationClassics

Breaking News

2003 Poetry

Winner of Forward Poetry Prize and Cholmondeley Award.

NewsContemporary

The Star Factory

1997 Prose/Memoir

Memoir of Belfast, winner of Yorkshire Post Book Award.

BelfastMemory

Bibliography

  • The New Estate (1976)
  • The Irish for No (1987)
  • Belfast Confetti (1989)
  • First Language: Poems (1993)
  • Opera Et Cetera (1996)
  • The Alexandrine Plan (1998)
  • The Ballad of HMS Belfast (1999)
  • The Twelfth of Never (2001)
  • Breaking News (2003)
  • For All We Know (2008)
  • Collected Poems (2008)
  • On the Night Watch (2009)
  • Until Before After (2010)
  • In the Light Of (2012)
  • Still Life (2019)

Translations by Author

  • The Inferno of Dante (2002)
  • The Midnight Court (2005)
  • The Táin (2007)
  • From Elsewhere (2012)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Long linesAllusivePostmodern devicesFusion with traditional storytelling
Recurring Motifs
BelfastThe TroublesLanguageIrish traditional musicEncyclopedic detail

Health

  • lung cancer
    2019
    Cause of death

Legacy

Influential poet mapping Belfast in detail, major figure in Northern Irish literature. Fellowships established in his memory at Seamus Heaney Centre.

Academic Societies

  • Seamus Heaney Centre

Archives

  • Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library

In Popular Culture

  • Tribute poem by Paul Muldoon

Quotes

  • It’s beautiful weather, the 30th of March, and tomorrow the clocks go forward. How strange it is to be lying here listening to whatever it is going on. The days are getting longer now, however many of them I have left. And the pencil I am writing this with, old as it is, will easily outlast their end.
    Source: The New Yorker (2019)

Trivia

  • Expert on Irish traditional music, wrote bi-monthly column for The Journal of Music.
  • Grew up in Irish-speaking family in lower Falls Road.
  • Published final poem in The New Yorker two months before death.