The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland

by Sinéad Morrissey (Editor)

The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty bucks the dominant publication trend of a long look back by focusing on the most recent of timeframes, in the belief that what is happening here, just now, is so special that it deserves a spotlight of its own. Sinéad Morrissey and Stephen Connolly

Northern Ireland is rightly celebrated the world over for its rich poetic heritage and vibrant poetry culture Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, Leontia Flynn and Sinéad Morrissey are just a few of the poets from the North who have changed the map of contemporary poetry.

Taking its cue from Frank Ormsby s Poets from the North of Ireland (1979), The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty gathers together the best of the new generation that has emerged in Northern Ireland over the last decade, from more established poets such as Miriam Gamble, Caoilinn Hughes and Stephen Sexton to new voices such as Padraig Regan, Manuela Moser and Emma Must.

The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty is a landmark anthology. Exciting, striking and timely, it announces a generation that is confidently poised to make the future its own.

Genres: Poetry

218 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Raised in Belfast, she was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where she took BA and PhD degrees, and won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1990. She has published four collections of poetry: There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2001), The State of the Prisons (2005), and Through the Square Window (2009), the second, third and fourth of which were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. After periods living in Japan and New Zealand she now lives in Belfast, where she has been writer-in-residence at Queen's University, Belfast and currently lectures.

Her collection, The State of the Prisons, was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006. In November 2007, she received a Lannan Foundation Fellowship for "distinctive literary merit and for demonstrating potential for continued outstanding work". Her poem "Through the Square Window" won first prize in the 2007 British National Poetry Competition. Her collection, Through the Square Window, won the Poetry Now Award for 2010.

Reviews

[Sarah Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely anthology of poems. The writers included come from every background in NI. I'd recommend buying this if you're looking to discover new, upcoming local talent.

[Sara Comuzzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

antologia dei nuovi, nuovissimi, contemporanei poeti nord irlandesi, che hanno vissuto, vivono o si sono trasferiti a Belfast negli ultimi 15 anni. il risultato è una raccolta viva, irriverente, all'avanguardia, arrabbiata ma di una rabbia sensata.
i poeti presenti vanno da un'età di 20 ai 50 anni, alcuni hanno già pubblicato qualche cosa, altri vinto alcuni premi, altri sono appena agli inizi.
importante sottolineare anche la presenza di poetesse, la cura data anche alla questione di genere.
sono voci che parlano di Belfast, di viaggi in altre città, di arte, delle cose quotidiane. poesia di strada, una specie di beat generation dei giorni nostri. speriamo venga tradotta.

dei versi di Padraig Regan:
if
nothing else it sure feels great

to slip your thumb under a
peach stone & push it out. & if
it tears & a little sticky juice
spurts from it,

remember that it is only a
prelude to the moment you bite
in. Remember that eating is
always an act of theft.’