“Quickly and awkwardly, I think is how I shall read.” Enjoy this evocative video in which Northern Irish poet and novelist Nick Laird reads from a selection of his powerful and commended poetry collections.

Laird’s reading includes poems from ‘Go Giants’ (2013), which connects the shores of his native Northern Ireland with those of the American east coast. The themes span from sectarian violence to religious faith to marriage, crazy in-laws and pug dogs. 

Nicholas “Nick” Laird (b. 1975) is a Northern Irish novelist and poet from County Tyrone. He worked as a lawyer for several years before leaving law to write full-time and is now the author of ‘To a Fault’ (2005), ‘Utterly Monkey’ (2006), ‘On Purpose’ (2007), ‘Glover’s Mistake’ (2009) and ‘Go Giants’ (2013). Laird is the recipient of many prizes, including the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Award, the Betty Trask Prize, a Somerset Maugham award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He is based between New York – where he is an adjunct professor at Columbia University – and London with his wife novelist Zadie Smith and their two children. For more about Nick Laird see: www.nicklaird.com

Nick Laird read from his poetry collections at the Louisiana Literature festival in 2013.  

Camera: Mathias Nyholm Schmidt and Simon Weyhes  

Edited by: Kamilla Bruus

Produced by: Christian Lund    

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015

Supported by Nordea-fonden