RESULTS

In thirty-four sonnets Ciaran Carson animates the romantic agony of three of Europe's great nineteenth-century poets with characteristic humour, argot and brilliant rhymes. Their formal patterns harness the forward rush of his thought and language. His 'correspondences' in the Alexandrine Plan show these poets' relevance to late twentieth-century Ireland.

'a marvellous work of parts, part verse, part prose, part haiku, part beautifully controlled long, loose lines. It is about Belfast past and present and is full of surprises, savage and witty, human and extravagant. His voice is truly original, both intelligent and passionate.' — A S Byatt, The Sunday Times
BOOKS OF THE YEAR

'Carson is one of the most original poets now at work in this country . . . he is the master of the long line; these poems are manic, frightening and funny, and somehow manage to catch the tone of life in modern Belfast.' — John Banville, The Irish Times

'a quite exceptional and original talent . . . There is a continuous large effort under way here, one that may well turn out to be among the most enduring artistic products of Northern Ireland since 1968.' — Neil Corcoran, TLS

Glyn Maxwell in Fortnight, said, 'The outer shell of Carson's work in First Language, shimmering, wayward, fanciful, masks his clear and sober purpose, to revivify in a world of cant, to repaint a spectrum across a sky of two colours.' Gerald Dawe of The Irish Times, wrote that, 'Ciaran Carson's First Language is a spectacular collection . . . If you buy only one poetry book . . . this year, make sure it's this one'.

Shortly after a man and a woman meet for the first time in a second-hand clothes shop in Belfast, a bomb goes off. It is some time in the 1970s. They become lovers. For All We Know is their story, told in the recent past: a meditation on love, place, memory, loss and language, how people know each other, misunderstand each other, or translate each other, not to mention the events and circumstances which are beyond their control.

Informed in part by Irish ballad metre and its criss-cross assonances, these poems contemplate the structure of authority and language. Opera Et Cetera comprises four sequences including 'Letters from the Alphabet' and 'Opera' which is based on the radio operator's code. As distorting mirrors of each other, they question the way we tell stories all the time. Rhyme itself fuels these experiments in narrative. 'Et Cetera' reinvigorates the vocabulary of Latin tags, while, 'Alibi' consists of versions from the Romanian of Stefan Augustin Doinas, whose investigations of powers-that-be find parallels in contemporary Ireland. In its obsessive musical sweep, the book is a tour de force. It is also, sometimes, very funny.

An account of growing up in Belfast and diving down 'the wormhole of memory' into the parallel universes where religion, politics and the sad magic of dying shipyards take manifold forms.

Translated from Irish

An outstanding poet, Ciaran Carson has also proved himself an adept and adventurous translator. Now he turns to a masterpiece perfectly suited to his abundant gifts, the 18th-century Irish 'Cúirt an Mhéan Oíche'. Brian Merriman's classic debate on marriage and the plight of young women culminates in the fairy goddess Aoibheall's judgement against men. Carson echoes Merriman's mix of high rhetoric and rude colloquial wit and replicates his probing analysis of sexuality and social mores. The acrobatics of his couplets quicken the poem's passionate argument, capturing its nudges and winks in earthy, contemporary idiom.