Northern poet, Paul Muldoon, tells Richard Fitzpatrick about the power of words

The Nests for Kathryn

There were a few dozen who occupied the field`across the road from where we lived,stepping all day from tuft to tuft,their big heads down in the soft grass,though I would sometimes pass a window and look out to see the field suddenly empty as if they had taken wing, flown off to another country.

IN the arts, January is a quiet month. Yet last week, I saw two major plays, Druid’s production of Dion Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn and the revival of Martin McDonagh’s A Skull in Connemara.

Christmas day, 4 o’clock, Stumps of cloud, like yellowing tower blocks, Lean over The failing glimmer of Christmas lights And the quays, that are utterly empty,

Madra

Martina Evans draws on her Mallow childhood for her new work written in the unusual form of an extended prose poem, says Colette Sheridan

Suji Kwock Kim, who will collect the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize in Cork, talks to Colette Sheridan about her work and heritage