Study Details: 1 Year Full-time 3 Years Part-time
Poetry is, quite simply, the activity for which Queen’s University is best known around the world. Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney was both a student and lecturer here at Queen’s, and other famous poet-alumni of the university include Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon and Medbh McGuckian. Heaney was a founding member of the famous ‘Belfast Group’ in the 1960s, a forum in which young poets came together with critics to discuss their work and the craft of good poetry more generally. The fruitful interaction of creative and critical activity is at the heart of what this unique MA offers.
Drawing on our long-standing reputation for producing distinguished critics and poets, this programme's creative-critical intersections make it suitable for a new generation of poets and critics alike. Students will be joining an academic environment with a world-leading expertise in the critical appreciation, writing, and understanding of modern poetry.
As a student on the MA in Poetry: Creativity and Criticism you can choose to follow either a critical or a creative pathway, or a combination of the two. Students who follow a critical pathway will be joining an academic environment with a long-standing reputation for the critical appreciation, reception and understanding of modern poetry. Poets who come to develop their own creative writing have the unique opportunity of working with some of Ireland's most renowned poets.
Normally a strong 2.2 Honours degree or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University either in English, or in Comparative or World Literature, or in Creative Writing; or joint or combined Honours with English, Literature, or Creative Writing as a major subject.
In addition, applicants are required to submit a sample of literary-critical written work (eg an essay on literature completed as part of an undergraduate degree), and, for those who also wish to pursue creative assessment options, a sample of 8-10 poems/pages of poetry, which will be assessed to determine if an offer of admission can be made.
Applicants who wish to pursue creative writing-only assessment normally require a 2.2 Honours degree or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in any discipline and are required to submit a sample of original written work (8-10 poems/pages of poetry) which will be assessed to determine if an offer of admission can be made.
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Graduates of the programme have a good employment record, entering professions such as publishing, journalism, arts administration, events organisation, the media, public relations, teaching, advertising, business and industry. The programme has an outstanding track record of student success in publication, and of graduates continuing their studies into (funded) PhDs in modern poetry or creative writing (poetry).
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