The Yellow Nib, Volume 4: The Literary Journal of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry

The Yellow Nib #4

by Ciaran Carson

The little bird that whistled shrill from the nib of its yellow bill..." Anonymously scribbled into the margin of a ninth-century manuscript, this much-loved Irish poem has inspired countless writers and publications over the years, including The Yellow Nib: The Literary Journal of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Now firmly established and renowned for the quality of its content, the journal takes its lead from that anonymous scribe: aiming simply to promote good writing - by both established and emerging writers - and nurture creative talent."

117 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2009

About the author

Ciaran Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen’s University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is married to fiddle player Deirdre Shannon, and has three children.

He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.