Carson, Ciaran Gerard

(1948- )

   Poet and novelist Carson was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he still lives. After graduating from Queen's University, Belfast, he was traditional arts officer (1976-1994), then literary officer for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland until 1998. From 1998 to 2003 he was a freelance writer. Then he became the director of The Seamus Heaney (see entry) Centre of Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast. He is also an accomplished musician and the author of Last Night's Fun: About Time, Food and Music (1996), a study of Irish traditional music. His awards and prizes: Eric Gregory Award, 1978. Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, 1987. Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry, 1990. T.S. Eliot Prize, 1993. Yorkshire Post Book Award (Book of the Year), 1997. Cholmondeley Award, 2003. Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), 2003. Some of his publications: The Irish for No, 1987. The New Estate and Other Poems, 1988. Belfast Confetti, 1990. First Language: Poems, 1993. Breaking News, 2003. Some of his poems: "Asylum," "Bagpipe Music," "Calvin Klein's Obsession," "Last Orders," "Metamorphoses of Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17)," "Night Patrol," "The Bomb Disposal."

   Sources: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Ireland in Poetry. Charles Sullivan, ed. Harry N. Abrams, 1990. Modern Irish Poetry. Patrick Crotty, ed. The Blackstaff Press, 1995. Poetry with an Edge. Neil Astley, ed. Bloodaxe Books, 1988. Poets from the North of Ireland. Frank Ormsby, ed. The Blackstaff Press, 1990. The Faber Book of Drink, Drinkers and Drinking. Simon Rae, ed. Faber & Faber, 1991. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.