THE POETS BOAT
	Sunday May 1 | The Joyce

(in association with Blackstaff Press)

1.00pm
Enjoy this Festival special as the internationally acclaimed poets Medbh McGuckian and Maureen Boyle read from their work in the shadow of the gantries, in Belfast Lough. Enjoy the company of two of the finest female poets writing in Ireland today.
Medbh McGuckian has won numerous awards for her work and is a member of Aosdana. Her most recent collection is The Book of the Angel. Maureen Boyle is the recent winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. Both poets are contributors to the first issue of The Yellow Nib, the new literary journal of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, published by Blackstaff Press.

3.00pm
The Poets’ Boat sets sail once again, this time in the company of Bosnian poet Goran Simic, well-known in Bosnia for his poems, essays and reviews. He saw out the siege of Sarajevo with his wife and two children. Goran’s poems arising from the siege have been translated and published in a limited edition by Cargo Press, The Sorrow of Sarajevo. He recently received a Freedom to Write award from PEN.

Ciaran Carson is one of Ireland’s most celebrated writers and the author of collections including The Irish for No, novel Shamrock Tea, nonfiction works including The Star Factory and translations of Dante and Brian Merriman. He is currently the Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry and general editor of its new literary journal The Yellow Nib published by Blackstaff Press.

Tickets for each event £5.00 available from Belfast Welcome Centre on 028 90246609 or online at www.cqaf.com