Gail McConnell: The Sun Is Open

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and James O’Leary Discussion
(03:32) - Gail McConnell interview
(01:01:50) - Southword poem, 13.58, January 28th 2022 by James McDermott

Gail McConnell is from Belfast. She is the author of  of The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021) and two poetry pamphlets: Fothermather (Ink Sweat & Tears, 2019) and Fourteen (Green Bottle Press, 2018). Fothermather was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award. Gail’s poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, PN Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Blackbox Manifold and Stand, and she is the recipient of two awards from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She has made two programmes based on her poetry for BBC Radio 4: Fothermather and The Open Box. She is Reader in English at Queen’s University Belfast and the author of Northern Irish Poetry and Theology (Palgrave, 2014). Gail’s writing interests include violence, creatureliness, queerness and the possibilities and politics of language and form.

This week's Southword poem is ‘13.58, January 28th 2022' by James McDermott, which appears in issue 43. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.