In the Poetry Programme on Sunday 15th November on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia O'Leary is joined by Doireann Ní Ghríofa to talk about her book A Ghost in the Throat, while Monica De Bhailís reads her winning poem in the Red Line Book Festival poetry competition.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a bilingual writer whose books explore birth, death, desire, and domesticity. Her awards include a Lannan Literary Fellowship (USA, 2018), a Seamus Heaney Fellowship (Queen’s University, 2018), the Ostana Prize (Italy, 2018), and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature (2016), among others. She is a member of Aosdána.
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A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann's prose debut, is a fluid hybrid of essay and autofiction inspired by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, famously referred to by Peter Levi as "the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain during the eighteenth century."
Doireann speaks with Olivia about her new book and the challenge of writing a new English translation of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s poem.
The Red Line Book Festival Poetry Competition 2020 attracted hundreds of entries. Judge Peter Sirr eventually whittled them down to a shortlist of eleven, choosing Monica De Bhailís's Survivor as the winning poem. The programme ends with a reading by Monica of her poem.
Listen to The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 15th November at 7.30pm or listen back after broadcast on the RTÉ radio player.
