Dispatches from Belfast

As many of you know, poetry editor Don Bogen won the Fulbright-Queen’s University Belfast Creative Writing Scholar Award (the only Fulbright Award in creative writing). In mid-January he hopped the pond and is now settling into his temporary digs. We look forward to Don’s updates on his adventures in Northern Ireland (last week, he bought a lamp!)—and promise to pass them along to give you a sense of the literary scene in one gorse-carpeted corner of the Emerald Isle.

Don Bogen: Just attended my first official Heaney Centre event—a talk on Bobbie Burns (on his 200-and-something birthday), complete with recordings of a few of his songs, some of which were quite ribald (though only for those who know the dialect), and others involving heroic all-night drinking contests (no translation necessary). No kilts in attendance (it was a cold night) but a few plaid ties. It may seem like I actually ended up in Glasgow rather than Belfast, but the distance across the water here is shorter than you’d think.