Wednesday, December 7th, 6pm ET

Global Irish Studies at Georgetown University, Solas Nua, and NYU DC Dialogues presented:

A poetry reading with Jessica Traynor and Victoria Kennefick

Wednesday, December 7th, 2023.

This event took place in person at NYU Washington, D.C. and was also live-streamed. The readings and discussion were moderated by Professor Cóilín Parsons.

Video Below:

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist, and poetry editor at Banshee. Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times poetry book of the year. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary, the Listowel Poetry Prize, and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Operas include Paper Boat, a commission from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, and The Wanderer, commissioned by Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Recent residencies include the Yeats Society Sligo, the Seamus Heaney Home Place and dlr LexIcon. She is a Creative Fellow of UCD. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Victoria Kennefick‘s debut poetry collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2022 and was awarded the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year 2022. Most recently, it has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2022. In 2021, it was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Poetry Book Award. It was a book of the year in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Telegraph, The Sunday Independent and The White Review. Victoria is the current poet in residence at the Yeats Society Sligo.

Cóilín Parsons is Associate Professor of English and Director of Global Irish Studies at Georgetown University and a member of the board of Solas Nua.