The Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry: Kate Miller

For the fifth year, Glucksman Ireland House will welcome the winner of one of the poetry world’s most coveted prizes, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection as judged by a select committee at Queens University Belfast. The winner, Kate Miller, will read from her collection The Observances at the annual Tom Quinlan Lecture in Poetry. Miller will be introduced by Northern Irish poet and novelist Nick Laird. Laird is curating Irish Arts Center’s PoetryFest, at which Miller will also read on Saturday November 5.

Seamus Heaney himself inaugurated the first Tom Quinlan lecture in 2011 at Glucksman Ireland House to endorse the importance of the first published book of poetry in a poet’s literary life. The lecture series, established by the Quinlan family, is named for Tom Quinlan in honor of his nearly 70 years as a poetry teacher and scholar. Quinlan, a member of Glucksman Ireland House since 1997, also reads at this event.

Dr. Leontia Flynn, Chair of the Judges, stated that this year’s submissions from Ireland and the UK, were “a strong shortlist of first poetry collections, each with a very distinctive style, project and outlook. Ultimately, the judges decided unanimously on a book where the quiet but intense sensibility of the author is integral to her poetic endeavour.“

Kate Miller grew up in Hampshire and now lives in London. She has received a number of awards including the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Prize in 2008. Selected in 2011 and 2013 for the SALT Best British Poetry anthologies, her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry Review, The Rialto, The SHOp, Warwick Review and the Times Literary Supplement.

From Glucksman Ireland House