New poetry: Alia Kobuszko; John F Deane; Ruth Carr; and Tom Paulin’s razor-sharp return
Dream Latitudes, Jonah and Me, Catching the Missing Beat and Namanlagh reviewed
Poetry
New Selected Poems: 1978-2022 by Medbh McGuckian - Copious sunsetty pleasures
The Belfast poet cuts her words to fit, or suit, though her poems can also settle into the straightforwardness of a realist play
New poetry: Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Audrey Molloy, Cian Ferriter and Sarah Howe
Martina Evans on Hymn to All the Restless Girls, Fallen, Brink and Foretokens
Crow Baby by Lauren Nichola Colley: second place in Moth Nature Prize 2025
Mark Cocker chose Crow Baby ‘for its tender humour and playful use of language and image of an otherwise grief-laced experience’
Walking on the Beach with Mum by William Wyld: third place in Moth Nature Prize 2025
Judge Mark Cocker: ‘I loved this for its seeming and easily overlooked slightness, when set against the gravity of its theme’
Best poetry of 2025: Our critics share their top picks
Mícheál McCann, Declan Ryan and Martina Evans on their favourite poetry from this year
Tom Paulin wins PEN Heaney Prize for Namanlagh
Poet honoured for his 10th collection, his firs tin more than 10 years
Annemarie Ní Churreáin: ‘There’s a deep respect embedded in Gaeltacht culture for troublemakers’
Poet reflects on how here upbringing has shaped her works, including her latest collection Hymn to All the Restless Girls
New poetry: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin; Enda Wyley; Gregory Leadbetter; and Rosamund Taylor
Declan Ryan on New Selected Poems; Sudden Light; The Infernal Garden; Filly
Derek Mahon: A True Note – an anniversary appreciation by John Banville
The Belfast-born poet, who died five years ago, left us a precious legacy of transcendent beauty, vigour, wit and profundity
Ignored but persistent, Bosco Helly’s poetry takes pointlessness to a new level
Galway wordsmith undeterred by his own failure to develop a readership
Grief, memory and women: Enda Wyley on what inspired her new poetry collection
Maybe these new poems consider memory to be a type of picture taking or making, the poet’s role to remember
Where Love and Imagination Colour the Dark: Essays on Thomas Kinsella – A powerful set of essays
Thomas Kinsella’s work is illuminated by ambience of inner-city Dublin, providing a Swiftian permanence
What does it mean to be a fallen woman?
In my new poetry collection I reclaim tragic heroines, or at least imagine a different ending to their stories
Colm Tóibín on The Poems of Seamus Heaney: ‘A process of finding echoes and associations’
This book contains Heaney’s unpublished poems plus all those from his single books of poetry published
Seamus Heaney’s Ribbons: A beautiful poem about his sisters, published for the first time
The reader is transported by Heaney’s illuminating memory: we’re in a school, a photographer is visiting and the girls are having their picture taken
Humans are apes that make beautiful things on purpose, but that’s not the whole truth
We contain multitudes. We don’t have to be afraid of ambiguity and difficulty
Michael D Higgins’s poetry album Against All Certainty: To hell with policy wonks for president, get a few bards
The President takes us back to an era of scarcity, warmth and unspoken love
‘An honesty like no other’: Padraic Fiacc’s legacy recognised in his Belfast birthplace
The subversive voice of the poet, one of the foremost chroniclers of the Troubles, still echoes
Harbour to odyssey: New poetry from Bebe Ashley, Paul Farley, Moya Cannon and Afric McGlinchey
Reviews of Harbour Doubts; When It Rained for a Million Years; Bunting’s Honey; and à la belle étoile
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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Weddings, Births, Deaths and other family notices