Salt Water Creek

2003

Private Collection

London: Enitharmon Press; with kind permission

Burns Fellow 2018: Rhian Gallagher (b. 1961)

And so, the Robert Burns Fellowship has once again been taken up. This year, the Fellow is poet Rhian Gallagher. Salt Water Creek is one of her previous publications.

In her own words: ‘The Fellowship enables spaciousness and totally recalibrates the creative life…For the first six months I have been immersed in the early history of the Seacliff Asylum, exploring the history in relation to Irish migrants. I have written poems responding to the site and the history, with other poems attempting to enact individual voices using the letter poem and the monologue. This has been a rollercoaster and has pushed my writing practice in new directions…much is in draft.
The Burns is enabling on so many levels and not least, I have been living in the place that is central to the work. I am reading a great deal of poetry and enjoying the luxury of reflective time.
People in the English & Linguistics Department have been kind and helpful and welcoming. I have tended to go into the office towards the end of the week…Writing poems seems to happen elsewhere but this has always been the case for me I think. Poems just do seem to come from elsewhere.’