Poetry Programme News Today

The new host of RTÉ Radio One's The Book Show picks his top five favourite tomes of the year

Eventbrite - Carlow College, St Patrick's presents Carlow College Annual Literary Awards 2022 - Monday, 11 April 2022 at Visual Carlow, Graigue, Carlow. Find event and ticket information.

In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 16th May, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia OLeary’s guests are John FitzGerald and Ireland Professor of Poetry Frank Ormsby. John FitzGerald is University Librarian at University College Cork and started to write poetry around ten years ago, in his late forties. While still unpublished, he won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Prize for 2014. A pamphlet, First Cut, was published in 2017 by Southword Editions, and he joins Olivia to talk about his first full-len...

Updated / Friday, 7 May 2021 09:00 In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 9th May, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia OLeary’s guests are Leontia Flynn and Matthew Geden. Award-winning poet Leontia Flynn was born in Co Down and lives in Belfast, where she teaches Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre. She has published four full collections, with These Days winning the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her 2017 collection, The Radio (Cape Poetry), was shortlisted for the T. S. El...

Updated / Thursday, 29 Apr 2021 07:00 In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 2nd May, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia O’Leary’s guest is Paula Meehan, former Ireland Professor of Poetry, who has published seven collections and won numerous awards. Paula’s selected poems, As If By Magic (Dedalus Press), is the Book Club choice for the 2021 Bealtaine Festival, the first time a book of poetry has been chosen. She talks about creativity, childhood memories, and shares warm memories of her fa...

The Poetry Programme previews Poetry Day Ireland 2021 Updated / Friday, 23 Apr 2021 07:00 Dara McAnulty reads Seamus Heaney on this weeks Poetry Programme In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 25th April, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1 - a new collection from James Harpur, and Niamh ODonnell, Director of Poetry Ireland, previews Poetry Day Ireland 2021. James Harpur is a multi-award-winning poet. His 2018 collection, The White Silhouette, was an Irish Times Book of the Year, while his 2012 collectio...

Updated / Thursday, 15 Apr 2021 10:24 Coming up in the Poetry Programme on Sunday 18th April, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, a new collection from Martina Evans, and readings by Kate Ennals and Kevin OFarrell. Martina Evans is an Irish poet and novelist and the author of eleven books of prose and poetry. Her 2018 poetry collection, Now We Can Talk Openly About Men, was an Observer, Irish Times and TLS Book of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize, the Irish Times Poe...

As chosen by the RTÉ Poetry Programme, our Poem of the Week is Begin by Brendan Kennelly, as read on Sunday with Miriam - listen to Brendan read it here.

Updated / Thursday, 11 Mar 2021 14:28 Christine Roseeta Walker features in the latest edition of The Poetry Programme In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 14th March, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, John McAuliffe talks about a new anthology introducing work by two dozen poets. John McAuliffe has published a number of collections of poetry, of which the most recent is The Kabul Olympics. He is Professor of Poetry at the University of Manchesters Centre for New Writing and Associate Publisher at Carc...

Updated / Friday, 5 Mar 2021 09:00 In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 7th March, at 7:30 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia OLeary is joined by poets Patrick Cotter and Jessamine O’Connor. Jessamine OConnor is a Dublin-born writer living on the Sligo/Roscommon border in the west of Ireland. She was the winner of the inaugural Comórtas Filíochta Chultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich 2020 (with poems translated by Oilí Diarmuid); Poetry Ireland/Butlers Cafe competition 2017, and previously the iYeats and F...