Born in County Tyrone in 1975, Nick Laird was educated at Cookstown High School and Cambridge University. He worked as a lawyer for several years before leaving law to write full-time. The recipient of many prizes for his poetry and fiction, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Award, the Betty Trask Prize, a Somerset Maugham award, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, he has lived in London, Warsaw, and Rome. He is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York. He joins Olivia to talk about poetry, his Northern Ireland background, and to read poems old and new. His most recent collection, Feel Free, was published earlier this year by Faber & Faber.
Theo Dorgan’s latest collection, Orpheus (Dedalus Press), is a book presented in two halves, and composed throughout in sapphics – in English, one of the most challenging of poetic forms. The programme ends with readings by Theo of two poems from the collection, one from each section.
The Poetry Programme will be available to listen back to after broadcast on the RTÉ radio player.
The Poetry Programme is a Rockfinch production for RTÉ. Series Producer: Claire Cunningham.