'An Ear to the Line': Matthew Rice & Annemarie Ní Churreáin

Hosted by Paul MaddernTwo outstanding poets from a new generation of Irish writing come together for a special reading at Seamus Heaney HomePlace.

Matthew Rice and Annemarie Ní Churreáin will share poems from their new and critically acclaimed collections, Plastic and Hymn to All the Restless Girls.Matthew Rice’s _Plastic_ is set during a single twelve-hour night shift in a factory, _plastic_ is a book-length poem exploring the life of the industrial worker turned poet.

Bringing together memoir, ekphrasis and satire, _plastic_ is based on Rice’s experience working in a plastic moulding factory for ten years.

Matthew’s debut, _The Last Weather Observer_ (Summer Palace Press) was an Arts Council of Northern Ireland top ten books of the year pick in 2021.

He is the Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s.Annemarie Ní Churreáin’s _Hymn to All the Restless Girls_ is a powerful and lyrical collection that celebrates the rebel spirit of the restless girl, sometimes known as a troublemaker but valued as a truth-teller, offering prayers of defiance, sacraments of identification, howls of protest and lyric flights.

Annemarie’s poetry has been shortlisted for the Shine Strong Award for Best Debut Collection (US) and for the Ledbury Hellens Poetry Prize for Best Second Collection (UK).

Her awards include the Irish Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award, The Markievicz Award, The Kavanagh Fellowship and a Hawthornden Foundation Residency Award (NYC).Together, their work reflects the vitality and range of emerging Irish poetry today.