Description: Winner of the 2005 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature; winner of the 2005 Ireland Chair for Poetry Award; the only poetry book long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award.
Brief description: Nick Laird is a poet, novelist, screenwriter, critic, and the Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast. His many honors include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The poem "Up Late" was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. Laird taught for ten years in New York City and currently lives in London and Ireland.