Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin talks about her new collection ‘The Boys of Bluehill’. Music permeates this collection which takes its title from an Irish air which her sister learned to play as a child. Eiléan has been at the forefront of Irish poetry since she won the Patrick Kavanagh Award with her debut collection in 1973 and has continued to garner honours and readers ever since, including the prestigious Griffin Award for poetry for her collection The Sun-fish.

Performance poet Hollie McNish won the 2009 UK Poetry Slam and earlier this year was awarded the 2015 Arts Foundation Award for Spoken Word. She speaks with Rick about performing and about tackling the challenge of transferring a performance poem onto paper.

Belfast poet Paul McMahon reads his poem ‘Tom’s Pouch of Cure-Stones’ which has been awarded the 2015 Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize.

Photo credit: Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin by Brian McGovern/The Gallery Press