Wonder: Readings by Maureen Boyle, Deirdre Cartmill and Csilla Toldy for National Poetry Day

To mark National Poetry Day, The Linen Hall is delighted to host a lunchtime poetry reading with three Arlen House poets – Maureen Boyle, Deirdre Cartmill and Csilla Toldy.

At a time when many of us are exhausted and terrified by the news cycle, come and hear three poets whose work helps us reconnect with a sense of wonder. Their work is concerned with finding meaning in this difficult world, sometimes through faith, sometimes by connecting with women who have gone before, sometimes by bringing our focus from the macro to the micro, sometimes by simply finding wonder in the every day.

Maureen Boyle’s second full collection, The Last Spring of the World (2022) addresses questions about survival, both personal and planetary, and tells the stories of others who have lived lives in extremis.

Deirdre Cartmill’s fourth collection, Under the Blue Seraphim (2025), charts a journey through grief, a search for transcendence, and explores what it means to believe in something higher and what that calls you to become.

Csilla Toldy’s first full collection, Firebird (2025) situates the life of a woman within history and explores with quiet authority the forces brought to bear upon it as well as the essential cycles of that life.

Maureen Boyle is the author of three books of poetry. The most recent, The Last Spring of the World was published in 2022 by Arlen House She has received various awards including the Fish Short Memoir Prize, The Strokestown International Poetry Prize, the Irish Chair of Poetry Prize and Inaugural Travel Bursary. She taught English in St Dominic’s in Belfast and Creative Writing for ten years with the Open University. She is a poetry and memoir mentor with the Irish Writers’ Centre and lives in Belfast.

Deirdre Cartmill has published four poetry collections – Under the Blue Seraphim (Arlen House 2025), The Wind Stills to Listen (Arlen House), The Return of the Buffalo (Lagan Press) and Midnight Solo (Lagan Press). She co-commissioned and co-curated Ireland’s first Poetry Jukebox and is one of the originating artists on the European collaborative project Bridging the Silence. She is an award-winning scriptwriter and has written for TV, theatre and radio. She holds an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Queen’s University and is a part-time lecturer in Creative Writing at Ulster University. www.deirdredcartmill.com

Csilla Toldy published three poetry pamphlets with Lapwing Belfast: Red Roots – Orange Sky (2013), The Emigrant Woman’s Tale (2015) and Vertical Montage (2018). She is the author of Angel Fur (Stupor Mundi, 2019), Bed Table Door (Wrecking Ball, 2023) – winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize – and Kata (Open Books Hungary, 2024). Her first full poetry collection is Firebird (Arlen House, 2025). Csilla works for the Open University and co-curates the Rostrevor Literary Festival. www.csillatoldy.co.uk