Frank Ormsby Readings
‘When he explores again a lifetime’s themes and preoccupations, Frank Ormsby, like all true poets, mysteriously finds himself breaking new ground. Even more uncannily, several of his recent poems already read like classics. Wise and vulnerable, this poet courageously scans the horizons presented by illness and death. Love poet as well as elegist, he embraces heartbreak and gladness. Its depth of thought and emotion gives The Tumbling Paddy a sense of resurrection.’ – Michael Longley
Frank Ormsby was born in 1947, in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and was educated at Queen's University in Belfast. Until 2010 he was Head of English at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. His latest collections are The Tumbling Paddy (Bloodaxe Books, June 2026), The Rain Barrel (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and The Darkness of Snow (Bloodaxe Books, 2017), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which was shortlisted for a National Book Circle Critics Award in the US. His retrospective Goat’s Milk: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), includes work from four earlier collections, A Store of Candles (Oxford University Press, 1977), A Northern Spring (Secker & Warburg, 1986), The Ghost Train (Gallery Press, 1995) and Fireflies (Carcanet, 2009), together with new poems, and was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize. He was editor of The Honest Ulsterman from 1969 to 1989, and has also edited Poetry Ireland Review. In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award, given in memory of John Hewitt, and in 2002 the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas at St Paul, Minnesota. Frank Ormsby served as the eighth Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2019 to 2022.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Frank Ormsby will launch his new collection The Tumbling Paddy at two in-person events in Northern Ireland in June, supported by Malachi O’Doherty:
Saturday 6 June, 2pm: Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast - part of the Belfast Book Festival.
Thursday 18 June, 7.30pm: Seamus Heaney HomePlace, 45 Main Street, Bellaghy, Magherafelt BT45 8HT
More details coming soon.
PAST EVENTS AND RECORDINGS
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK ORMSBY
Ireland Cultural Centre, London, 2 May 2021, 2pm - then online
Frank Ormsby in conversation with Anne Morrison
A fifty-minute conversation between Anne Morrison and Frank Ormsby, Ireland Professor of Poetry. As part of this wide-ranging discussion, Frank read a few poems from his most recent books The Rain Barrel, The Darkness of Snow and Goat's Milk: New & Selected Poems.
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Poetry of The 'Troubles' Revisited
Lecture by Frank Ormsby, holder of the Ireland Chair of Poetry with welcome by Prof Iggy McGovern and introduction by Prof Nicholas Grene. The second of his lectures as Ireland Professor of Poetry. Recorded at Trinity College Dublin. Released online 4 March 2022.
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A feature review of Frank Ormsby's The Rain Barrel is in The Irish Times here.
Frank Ormsby recorded his poem 'The Butterfly House' from The Rain Barrel for The New Yorker. You can listen to Frank read the poem here.
In 2018 Frank Ormsby collaborated with singer/songwriter Anthony Toner on an album The Kiss of Light. The CD was launched by Frank, Anthony and the other two musicians involved at an event at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris on 29 March 2018. Frank Ormsby, Anthony Toner and cellist Neil Martin gave a number of other events based around the CD. The album features recordings of Frank reading 11 of his own poems, with each reading followed by a short instrumental composed by Anthony Toner in response to the poems, played by Anthony on accoustic guitar, Linley Hamilton on trumpet and Neil Martin on 'cello. The poems are taken from Frank Ormsby's Goat's Milk: New & Selected Poems and The Darkness of Snow. Full details a clips from the CD are here.
Frank Ormsby was the Guest of Honour at the BBC Proms in the Park at Castle Coole, Nothern Ireland on 9 September 2017. His work was celebrated and two poems from Goat's Milk: New & Selected Poems were read by actor Adrian Dunbar accompanied by specially composed music by Graeme Stewart performed by the Ulster Orchestra and harpist Richard Allen.
[06 September 2019]
