Still Life is a truly remarkable collection which depicts the final six months of Carson’s life from his home in North Belfast. It is a moving and tender portrayal of his life, his family and his home in the city that he loved.

We will hear our speakers Scott McKendry, Dawn Watson and Liam Carson read from Still Life and their own work to reflect on the collection, Carson, and North Belfast.

Dawn Watson

Dawn Watson is a poet from Belfast. She is the author of We Play Here (Granta Poetry, 2023) and The Stack of Owls is Getting Higher (Emma Press). Dawn’s work appears in journals such as Granta and The Poetry Review, and on BBC Radio 4. She is a lecturer at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University.

Liam Carson

Liam Carson is the director of the IMRAM Irish Language Literature Festival, and the author of the memoir call mother a lonely field, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2013. He is also a haiku poet, and his collection Belfast Twilight will be published by Salmon Poetry in 2025.

Scott McKendry

Scott McKendry is from North Belfast. His poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere. His pamphlet, Curfuffle (Lifeboat, 2019), was a Poetry Book Society Autumn Choice. In 2019, McKendry won a Patrick Kavanagh Award. In 2024 he was chosen by Paul Muldoon as Ireland Chair of Poetry’s Poet of Promise. His debut collection, GUB, is out now with Corsair (Little, Brown).