We are pleased to present poet Frank Ormsby in conversation with Anne Morrison.

About Frank Ormsby: Born in Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh, Frank  Ormsby was educated at Queen’s University in Belfast and until 2010 he was Head of English at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.  He is the eighth Ireland Professor of Poetry, a position he took up on 1 November 2019 and will hold until 31 October 2022. 

Frank has consistently been seen as one of Northern Ireland’s foremost poets and to date has published 7 collections of poetry: A Store of Candles (1977), A Northern Spring (1986), The Ghost Train (1995), Fireflies (2009), his retrospective Goat’s Milk: New & Selected Poems (2015), which was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize,  The Darkness of Snow (2017) which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a National Book Circle Critics Award in the US and his most recent work, The Rain Barrel (2019). 

Frank was editor of The Honest Ulsterman from 1969 to 1989.  He has also edited Poetry Ireland Review, along with a number of poetry anthologies and several books.

In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award, given in memory of John Hewitt.  In 2002 he received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas at St Paul, Minnesota. 

About Anne Morrison: Anne has a long and distinguished career as a television executive and producer in documentaries and other factual programmes. She is currently Creative Director, Factual at Nevision production company, having held senior roles in the BBC for many years. She was Chair of BAFTA and founded the BBC Academy. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Nottingham Trent University for services to broadcasting and the arts. She was born and brought up in Belfast and now lives in London.