The Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts

has the pleasure of presenting;

PAUL DURCAN
The Great Irish Poet

on Thursday 10th June 7pm
at
Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Buildings
Newcastle University
tickets £6/£4
for tickets;
Melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
0191 2227619

Biography

Poet Paul Durcan was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 16 October 1944.

In 1974 he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, and published his first collection O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor in 1975. Subsequent collections include The Selected Paul Durcan (1982), Jesus and Angela (1988) and Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems (2001), a central theme of which is death and disintegration. His 1985 collection, The Berlin Wall Café, a series of poems about the break-up of his marriage, was a Poetry Book Society choice and is regarded by many critics as his most important work.

He was Poet in Residence at the Frost Place, New Hampshire, in 1985, and Writer in Residence at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1990. He was awarded the Irish American Cultural Institute Poetry Award in 1989 and his collection Daddy, Daddy (1990) won the Whitbread Poetry Award. He was joint winner of the 1995 Heinemann Award. His most recent collections of poetry are The Art of Life (2004), and The Laughter of Mothers (2008).

In his native Ireland he has been cultivating a large and devoted following for his poetry for more than thirty years. He is the author of seventeen critically acclaimed volumes of poetry, including most recently Cries of an Irish Caveman (2001). Durcan has long been celebrated for a lyrical, freewheeling style that rejoices in the ordinary pleasure of daily life while still fiercely addressing his country’s most pressing political concerns. Durcan has also acquired a reputation for being something of a performance artist as well, bringing a wild vibrant energy to his readings that raises them to the level of a dramatic event. But it is Durcan’s poetry that has always held the spotlight.

“His readings are famous.” – James Simmons, The Spectator

“The dislocated, conversational vernacular of his zany verse-narratives made him an excellent performer of his own work, associating him with performance poets such as Allen Ginsberg and the Liverpool Beat poets rather than the mainstream.” – Bernard O’Donaghue, Times Literary Supplement

“Paul Durcan’s Ireland is one we inhabit. At times he is ready to celebrate the bizarre and the ordinary; at other times he is full of a surreal rage against both order and disorder.” – Colm Toibin, Times Literary Supplement

“One of the most original and undaunted imaginations at work.” – Seamus Heaney